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Before we caught the “let’s explore Lesvos before it’s too late” bug, we came down with a serious case of “we have GOT to see Cappadocia.” Back in November, soon after we’d arrived in Mytlini, we talked to Karina and Tim (Matilda) about going together – what’s more fun than a group road trip? Now in March, we were 8 km as the crow flies from the coast of Türkiye, there’s a ferry from Mytilini to Ayvalik, and the airport there has rental cars. Boom. We hopped on the ferry to Ayvalik at 5:00 pm one day in late March, rented our Dacia Duster at the [remarkably empty] airport, and knocked off our first few hours of the drive that night.

After a jaw dropping breakfast spread at the hotel in Bursa (directly south and across the Sea of Marmara from Istanbul), we headed another 6 hours or so southeast to Göreme, a small town in the heart of the Cappadocia region. We’d booked rooms in a beautiful hotel up against the cliffs that ring much of the town and spent our first afternoon meandering along the byzantine streets toward a cave restaurant, The Wooden Spoon, Tim had learned was particularly worth seeking out.

We settled in on cushions around a table at the far back of the cave and ordered their traditional specialty: lamb stew (chicken in my case) cooked in pottery vessels that looked a bit like cocktail shakers. After we’d inhaled the mezes, the owner brought a tray of pots to the table, squatted down next to us, and began to crack each of them open, one by one, then decanted the steaming, aromatic contents into our dishes.

Between the beauty of the cave around us and the mastery that came out of those cracked pottery shakers we were transported. What a way to start our visit.

The evening begged for a quick nightcap before wandering back to our hotel and our cozy cave beds.

“Cappadocia” (in the Turkish pronunciation, it’s Kappa-DOH-kia – and for that matter, Go-REH-meh) recalls – to my mind at least – the iconic rock formations I’ve always thought of as tents perched on top of rock columns of varying sizes. This harks back to my visits 50 years ago and since to “Tent Rocks,” a formation found on the Cochiti Pueblo in north central New Mexico – about 45 minutes south of my house in Santa Fe. Its traditional name is Kashua Katuwe, its current name is Kashua Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument. In Cappadocia these are known as “fairy chimneys,” and are found in clusters large and small. In some cases, the bases of these chimneys are carved out to create small living or worshipping spaces. “Cave dwellings” are the other tuff-based attraction in Cappadocia: homes, monasteries, public squares, chapels, bakeries, wineries, and more were carved in cliffsides and in one case, inhabited until the early 1950s.

We visited two excellent examples of these on our first day – first, fairy chimneys in the Paşabağları Müze ve Örenyeri, where the formations are clustered in the base of a shallow valley, In addition to just looking really cool, the chimneys here are known for their use as monasteries – monks’ cells to be more accurate – and the distinctive shape was used to great advantage by Saint Simeon, who reputedly built his cell a few meters up from the ground – until the plague of pilgrims he attracted forced him to create another one 20 meters above that with an inner staircase that no pilgrims could access.

From there we went to the nearby Zelve Valley, which of all we saw over the course of our Cappadocia visit, was my favorite. (We saw it from our balloon a few days later too!) It is in fact three valleys with the remains of cave dwellings in each of them (these were the ones which were inhabited through the 1950s). We spent a gorgeous, golden sunny spring afternoon wandering through the valleys inspecting the spaces, imagining the grape juice trickling away from the stone press and the whole meal at the bottom of the stone mill. Harder to imagine living in these spaces, but if you think of lovely carpets lining the floors, brass braziers warming the rooms, and the aroma of fresh coffee wafting through it becomes more appealing. Who knows if that was what it was like, but I certainly hope so.

Our explorations the next day were equally rewarding, starting with the Göreme Open Air Museum, which encompasses a relatively small open space in a valley and the cliffside caves built into the sides. There are 15 churches and 11 refectories built into the cliffs to honor various early Christian saints, and several are ornately and beautifully carved and painted. It’s hard to describe these without photos, but unfortunately, the museum prohibits taking photographs inside these chapels. It’s worth looking at this article (https://www.cappadociahistory.com/post/goreme-open-air-museum), which gives an excellent description of each along with equally good photographs. To tempt you to go to the article, I took one of them off the web and included it here.

Derinkuyu, the largest underground city in the region was next, and I can say with certainty that this was my least favorite of our activities in Cappadocia. Think about it: “under” and “ground.” Caves carved deep into the earth with long tunnels and winding narrow stairways connecting them. No natural light, and not a lot of other light either. Lots and lots of people. In its day this particular city held as many as 20,000 people. There were at least that many when we were there too.

One of the more astonishing aspects of visiting a place like this in Türkiye (and Greece for that matter) is that there are no safety measures to speak of, anywhere. No guards. No guides. No “DANGER” signs. No crowd control. Until you get to the bottom of the city – at least as low as the chamber with the door to the tunnel that runs even deeper. There was in fact a man in that chamber who was telling people that because the tunnel was SO LOW and SO NARROW people could only descend in groups, then a new group could only descend when that group returned.

As we waited, the chamber became increasingly crowded as more and more other gullible visitors emerged from the tunnel. It became very, very crowded in fact. Karina bailed almost immediately. It goes without saying – DOES it go without saying?? it SHOULD go without saying – I only held out another five minutes or so, and Peter ended up stumbling out into daylight just a few minutes after me. Tim was the only brave heart to do the tunnel of death, er doom, er descent, and reported afterwards that in the entire thing he was never able to stand up. He climbed all the way down and back in a crouch. I’ve rarely been so relieved to see the sun again (I’m looking at you, Tivat). I would have to be completely desperate to consider living in such a place – and apparently that was precisely what the inhabitants were. At some point Christians built the city and used it to hide from Turkish raiders. Potential death above might have cajoled me back below, but it would require some urgency. First I would have to see the attackers on their horses, thundering down the hills above me, swords in hand.

We ended the day with a stop at Uchisar castle, which was very much above ground, thank you very much, and it was delightful. Uchisar is visible from Göreme, and the climb to the top was gorgeous every step of the way. There was an air of lightness to our little group (that I attribute to having survived Derinkuyu) that gave us all a spring in our step and renewed our sense of wonder – we took our time and felt the sun on our faces and the wind in our hair. Seriously, I was still glad to be alive.

For our last night in Göreme, Karina booked us a “whirling dervish” experience at a church outside of town early that evening, and it won the prize for being utterly different from my expectations. Years and years ago in Istanbul I’d gone with my colleagues to a very touristy “Turkish dinner” complete with entertainment. It was indeed fun (even when my Armenian colleague, already tense about being in Türkiye, was called onto the stage to learn to belly dance. She handled it beautifully.) and in addition to belly dancing there was some whirling dervishing that established my understanding of it as men in white skirts doing Tasmanian Devil impressions for far longer than I’d ever thought possible.

Our experience in Cappadocia was a religious ritual, one that began slowly, and continued slowly – the use of “whirling” to describe it is an injustice: it is men in full, white skirts making controlled, graceful, and synchronized turns around an unseen center point – for far longer than I’d ever though possible. I kept thinking there was going to be a break of some kind and they would begin the actual whirling. They didn’t, and it was a relief in the end. The meditative nature of the ritual, full of meaning only touched at in the program, left me contemplative and grateful for a reprieve from the noise of the outside world.

We split up for dinner but met again a little later at a bar known for good, mulled wine and even better local music. We enjoyed both immensely, then Peter and I left a little early to spend some time in our hotel’s pool before bed. We had an early morning in front of us and floating around for an hour or so seemed like the perfect way to end the day.

One of the biggest tourist attractions in Cappadocia is going up in a balloon at the crack of dawn to see the topography from above. Every other building in Göreme houses a ballooning company, and yet it had been extremely difficult to get a reservation. Part of the problem was that the weather had not cooperated for a couple of days, and there was a backlog of people with reservations to go up. The other part is simply that there are a ton of people who want to do it, and for very good reason. As Tim noted afterwards, this was one of those rare cases where the experience lived up to the hype.

I had never thought I would actually do it if I ever got the chance though – a hot air balloon? Those things are death traps. I’d lived in New Mexico long enough to hear plenty of stories from the Albuquerque Balloon Festival about botched landings or unintended tangles with high voltage wires: noooo thank you. By the time our ballooning day dawned, however, I was right there with the rest of them. Elbowing people out of the way to make sure we got a corner position in the basket in fact. First one in. Yep. I was that person. And being a hobbit, it was a good thing I was. I could see over the edge!

We were joined by 30 other people in that basket, including pilot and wingman, and as we lifted off the ground the air was already alive with glowing balloons.

As we ascended, we could see that in nearby valleys dozens and dozens of balloons were inflating and lifting off as well. There was a full moon, the sky was only just beginning to lighten, and we were in a hot air balloon floating over the most spectacular scenery I’d ever seen.

Fortunately, we spent the first 30 minutes or so drifting along relatively close to the ground. I had no fear at all! – it was beautiful, and thrilling and awe-inspiring.

At some point we started going higher – and just kept going. I stopped looking over the side, and so wasn’t completely terrified about hanging a kilometer above the ground in a giant Easter basket. We spent quite a long time at that altitude and continued to drift along over increasingly flat spaces. It was clear that we were heading for a perfect landing. And eventually it was – only bumped down and back up again twice!

Our adventures in Cappadocia might be over, but a few hours’ drive later we arrived in Pamukkale, the site of travertine terraces and the ruins of Hierapolis. We had rooms in a small hotel on the main street of town, right across from the lake at the base of the “Cotton Palace” cliffs. Over a looooong time, calcite-rich water from a spring high on the mountain created the marble terraces, and in their heyday, overflowing with water turquoise from the reflection of the sky, it must have been stunning. As it was, with 95% of the pools empty, it was stunning. But sad, too. People, agriculture, and tourism have taken their toll on the water table in the area, and it’s hard to see how it will ever regain its former glory. Not that that stops the hordes – it is stunning after all, and we wanted to see it too.

Early the next morning, we woke to the oddly familiar sound of propane being fired. Sure enough, right out from our hotel windows hot air balloons were passing just over the lake in front of us. They eventually lifted higher to the cliffs above, but it was fun to have the view from the ground for a change.

We drove up to the Pamukkale pools after breakfast; still early, it was still relatively cool, and we aimlessly roamed the paths toward the main attraction. After walking the edges of the pools around the far side and away from the hordes, and thoroughly enjoying the views from the cliff tops,

we wandered up to the ruins of Hierapolis, highlighted by the Plutonion, or gateway to hell (good to know how to get there), and the huge amphitheater above that. At the height of the area’s growth, between the 2^nd and 4^th c AD, the Grand Theatre of Hierapolis held 10,000 people, and with excellent restoration the remains are remarkably intact. St. Philip the apostle’s burial place (and crucifixion site) is in the hills above the theater.

We went directly from our ruin rambles to the Cleopatra Pools to shed clothing for bathing suits and experience the healing waters. Named for the gift Marc Antony made to Cleopatra, the pools hold “champagne” waters flowing from an underground thermal spring separate from those that send the “milky” waters into the travertine pools. At the pools’ closest point to the spring’s entrance, you can feel the tiny bubbles sliding and bursting along your skin, and at a little less than 100⁰ F, floating in it is a remarkably comforting and relaxing experience. The roof of an Apollon temple, held up by Doric columns, used to cover much of the pool, but it collapsed in an earthquake. You still have to swim or at times clamber over the broken columns underwater as you make your way around.

Our timing was good overall: we were there in late March – far fewer people. We were there relatively early in the day – tour buses were streaming in, but most of their riders were still exploring the travertine pools. It was almost empty, and we lazed and chatted and laughed, enjoying the relative serenity.

After lunch in the shade of the pools’ restaurant we headed back to the car and started our drive back to Ayvalik and the ferry to Mytilini the next morning. It was satisfying to settle onto the jetty off the back of our hotel in Ayvalik. We’d driven through half of Türkiye and experienced two of its most spectacular sights. We’d eaten very well (aside from a truly abominable “mojito” in Pamukkale after our drive there the day before), were thoroughly exhausted by our adventures, and our homes in Mytilini were just a quick ferry away. We looked forward to getting back to them, but there was a beautiful sunset to enjoy with a drink and our dear friends. Thanks for a great trip, Matilda!