Welcome to Cappadocia
Last week I spent a fantastic few days in Cappadocia, central Turkey. I’ve already written a couple of posts on what I did there – notably staying in a cave hotel, taking a flight in a hot air balloon, and eating a fair amount of Cappadocian food – but since it’s not an area of the world that a huge amount of people go and visit, I thought I would write a little bit more about it.
The reason why most tourists come to Cappadocia is to ride on one of its magnificent hot air balloons over the stunning volcanic rock formations. We weren’t sure when we arrived whether we would choose to go in one as there are other ways to explore the surrounding countryside, and the hot air balloons are both expensive and potentially dangerous. However, on our first morning I set my alarm for 6am and dragged my tired self out of my cave room and out onto the hotel terrace to be greeted with the truly extraordinary sight of around one hundred balloons gently drifting through the valley, in silence. It was a majestic sight as the balloons floated along, occassionally peeping in and out of the rocks without a sound, and I made my mind up to get onto a balloon in some way, leaving aside all niggles about safety and cost.
Dawn balloons on day 1
Around the World in 80 Elephants 