Turkiye, Portugal, Spain and Dubai Day 2 Cappadocia 15 Sept 25

Up at 4:30am for another very good reason, Hot Air Ballooning over Cappadocia.
While we were waiting near reception for our ride, “Call to Prayer” started at 5:17, I’d forgotten how loud it is at that time of the morning.
We were picked up at 5:20am and taken to a staging/coordination area, we arrived around 5:40am. There were so many mini buses and cars, all full. It’s 10C and we are sitting on a minibus like most others, waiting. We drove to another area parked and then we were transferred from 1 bus to another, and parked and waited. We could see balloons inflating to the side of us, 9 or more glowing from the flame. And more being readied to inflate right next to us. We eventually got off the bus and just stood around waiting and watching all the activity as 1 balloon after another took to the sky.
We were directed to a balloon basket, unfortunately we missed out on getting one of the end positions. The baskets take 28 people in a 2/2,5/5,pilot5/5,2/2 configuration. The numbers represent how many people are in each divided section of the basket. The ends with 2 sections of 2 have much more room. We remembered this too late!
We had Lift off at 06:35am. There was almost no wind, which meant we essentially went straight up. It was surreal, floating in the sky with easily over 100 other balloons. We reached a height of 1100m during our flight. The pilot could rotate the balloon so everyone got a bit of the different views of both the landscape and the other balloons. The sight of the balloons transposed on the landscape, particularly the quintessential Cappadocia Chimneys was enchanting. Deb has some great photos that I am sure will make it to https://www.facebook.com/Greganddebstravelblog We finished our flight, with a low flyover of the valley full of Chimneys. Because it was so still, our pilot was able to land our basket on the back of a trailer. We Landed at 7:17am, we all climbed out and they had celebratory bubbles and juice set up. We all got handed a certificate to commemorate the day.
We were back on a minibus and left the site at 7:40am, drove for 10 mins, then stopped & waited, before we were put on another bus, so much double handling. We eventually got back to our hotel at 8:10am.
We sat outside at the restaurant and had breakfast.
Our next tour started at 9:30am. We had a full black Mercedes mini bus to ourselves!
First up, we stopped for pics of The Castle, the highest rock formation in the district. It was used as a fortress and now is a lookout.
We then headed south to the underground city of Kaymakli. It was discovered along with 43 others in the late 1960’s. There was no written or oral history of them. Only 6 are open to the public. Archaeological work on this site and others has determined that they have existed for over 1800 years. The Romans were found to have used the underground cities between 4th and 10th centuries. This city extends to 12 floors underground, cut out of the Tuff rock. The same rock that the Chimneys are made of. Most of the cities found, only go to a depth of 3 to 4 floors. They all had similar facilities, livestock areas on the upper floor, food storage and cooking on the next floor(s) down, family areas on lower floors with communal kitchens, there were wineries and other specialty rooms, even temporary grave rooms. One thing the cities didn’t have was a sewage system, that apparently was a manual disposal job. This city has the capacity for up to 8000 people to live in it. Intertwined through the tunnels connecting the rooms and floors were security features like large round stone doors to block passageways, defensive holes through walls, ceilings and doors for attacking anyone who tried to storm the city. It was all very interesting and an engineering marvel all cut out and shaped by hand!
We left the underground city at 11:15am and headed to the Sobani Valley. Here we had a look at a Snake Church, dating back to the 8th century. We could take photos in this church. It wasn’t well preserved, but you could still clearly see the many murals from the10th to 12th centuries, painted on the plaster lined Tuff rooms of the church. There was a lot of graffiti dating back to the 1800’s, giving a good indication of who had visited or stayed here. It was mostly Greeks and others from nearby countries. Attached to the church was a small community carved into the Tuff of the slopes. There were at least 4 family residences that we saw, very spacious inside.
We enjoyed a walk through Soganli Valley, along a track about halfway up a large slope. From the pathways we could see many ancient homes carved into the Tuff slopes.
We saw Byzantine rock tombs, and abandoned Dome church, a hidden church and abandoned old villages. At the end of the walk there was a large dragon statue in the small village we had walked to. This is part of an honouring of St George, he is held in very high esteem in the Cappadocia area.
Next we headed to Sobesos, the site of an active archaeological dig of a 6th century Roman Bath house and associated structures. They have revealed some very good intact mosaic tile areas from the 4th Century and Byzantine graves. The excavation started at the end of 2002, after the ruins were discovered in 1998.
Onwards we went, to Taskinpasa Madrasah, an Ottoman theological school. The only original feature left is a14th Century doorway, an impressive doorway.
On we went to a small university village of Urgup. Here we shared lunch with Efe, our guide. It was a delicious array of local foods, mezze style dips (spicy tomato, smoky eggplant, humus, yoghurt &mint) as well as some Zucchini fritters, a lamb dish, white beans with rice, and finished off with a small piece each of the local baklava and some Turkish tea. It was a great way to finish our time in Cappadocia.
We had a walk around the older part of the village before heading back to the hotel.