On Thursday, we woke up at 4 am to get ready for our 4:50 am pickup for the hot air balloon ride over Cappadocia. The skill of the balloon pilots is surprising. There were more than 50 balloons in the air with on average 20 people in each of them and yet it all went smoothly. The terrain that you get to see from above is quite varied - volcanic complexes, cinder cones, fairy chimneys and volcaniclastic rocks in different colors of red, white, green and brown. It was a magical experience and we came down after about an hour in the sky when the sun started going up.
After the hot air balloon ride, we went for the "Green Tour" or a tour of Southern Cappadocia that started with a tour of an underground city that the ancient Christians used to hide from the armies of Pagan Romans. After that we went for a 3.5 km hike in a valley. During the hike, we saw a church that's literally "under a tree". We also stopped to enjoy Turkey's special apple tea. After the hike, we had lunch with our tour group and then went to see the largest cave monastery of Cappadocia. There was lots of driving involved in all this so we used some of that time to catch up on sleep. We barely made it to our airport shuttle bus after the tour but the tour company was nice enough to accommodate our schedule and dropped us off in time to catch the shuttle bus. The shuttle took us to the Kayseri airport and then we took a flight to Istanbul, our fourth and last city of this trip - after Amsterdam, Izmir/Kusadasi and Cappadocia. We reached our hotel in Istanbul at around 1 am and went to sleep right away.
After the hot air balloon ride, we went for the "Green Tour" or a tour of Southern Cappadocia that started with a tour of an underground city that the ancient Christians used to hide from the armies of Pagan Romans. After that we went for a 3.5 km hike in a valley. During the hike, we saw a church that's literally "under a tree". We also stopped to enjoy Turkey's special apple tea. After the hike, we had lunch with our tour group and then went to see the largest cave monastery of Cappadocia. There was lots of driving involved in all this so we used some of that time to catch up on sleep. We barely made it to our airport shuttle bus after the tour but the tour company was nice enough to accommodate our schedule and dropped us off in time to catch the shuttle bus. The shuttle took us to the Kayseri airport and then we took a flight to Istanbul, our fourth and last city of this trip - after Amsterdam, Izmir/Kusadasi and Cappadocia. We reached our hotel in Istanbul at around 1 am and went to sleep right away.
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