Goreme, Turkey – 6 days – June 6th to 11th 2017
From Urfa, Turkey: 626 km by bus
31 923 km/39 800 km without any flight
Cappadocia! A dream made of fairy chimneys and magnificent landscapes, with a glimpse of air balloon. We always say experiences more than things are those that count. And an air balloon above Cappadoccia is one of these.
4 am. We manage to wake up, dress in warm clothes and step outside our hotel. A minivan comes to pick us up. We drive fast in the winding roads. The night is dark and we see glowing lights like little fires in the horizon. The minivan enters a dirt track. Suddenly we see it. Like painfully grounded on its side, we can feel its breathing. The sound is impressive. In a minute, it starts to rise upright. Two men dressed in red shirts give us the sign to get in. We’re inside! The pilot actions the fire. We start to rise smoothly in the air. What a first experience in an air balloon! Around us, dozens of balloons also rise in the air. The sun has started to paint the sky with pink and purple colors. The quiet atmosphere is only broken by the fire actionned by the pilot, like the breathe of a giant.
We go up and up. It’s beautiful. The balloon turns around on itself. The dance of the ballons has started. One after the other they glow, they rise, they fall. We see the beautiful geological formations of Cappadocia. It’s magical.
This moment was one of the best we had during this trip.
Back on the ground, we spent a few days in Cappadocia walking around. In Goreme, we found a nice “cave” hotel. It means the hotel itself is built inside the stone peaks. The room where we stayed was carved in the stone. Cappadocia has really this particularity that the stones are used as houses and even palaces. We walked, got lost in the labyrinth of paths going up and down around the peaks. The stone formations were so impressive.
Truly Cappadocia is a fantastic area to spend some time in Turkey. Due to the current political context and its controversial president, it looks like tourists shun Turkey. Hotels in Cappadocia were quite empty. It made our experience in Goreme even better without the mass tourism we expected. We also had a crush with food. We’d go again and again to a nice little restaurant serving delicious pide (the Turkish pizza). Eating pide and drinking Turkish tea after a nice walk in the valleys of Cappadocia. That was happiness!
Next: a big step forward crossing the Bosphorus and finally reaching Europe, Istanbul here we are!
