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Entry from:
Cappadocia, Turkey
Entry
Title: "Fairy Chimneys
Wonderland"
Entry:
"
Cappadocia Must-Do
1.
Stay in a cave hotel if budget allows
1. Stay at least 2 days, join both the north and south tours
2. Take hot air ballon tour if budget allows
To get to Cappadocia, you have to fly to either
Kayseri or
Nevsehir. We flew to Kayseri by
Pegasus (www.flypgs.com) and the hostel arranged airport transfer for us to
Göreme (about an hour, TL20/pax). Make sure you pre-book you airport transfer before arrival as they're not readily available.
Flying there is cheap and better than 11hr bus. We stay the night at
Rock Valley Pension (www.rockvalleypension.com) in Göreme.
It's better to stay in Göreme cause
it's near to all the attractions. Being a "tourist infested" area, the convenient stores and restaurants open till late (around 11pm). We had
Turkish pizza and chicken stew for dinner, and the price is definitely much cheaper compared to
Istanbul. We signed up for the north tour next day. If you have only a day to spare in Göreme, I would recommend you the north tour.
Tours
Red /
North Tour: TL40-50, ~6hrs.
Göreme Open Air Museum, Uçhisar
Castle, Fairy Chimneys,
Rose Valley,
Ürgüp and
Avanos.
Green /
South Tour: TL40-50, ~7-8hrs. Panaroma,
Derinkuyu Underground City, Ilhara
Valley, Selime Monastery
Hot Air Ballon: 110-160 Euros
Most of the Cappadocia attractions is covered in the north tour, especially Göreme Open Air Museum,Üçhisar Castle and Fairy Chimneys. Attractions of interest in the south tour will be Panaroma and Selime Monastery.
Open Air Museum holds the region's best collection of painted-cave churches and we spent quite some time there adoring the caves and the artwork.
Next stop was Üçhisar Castle, a rock formation carved with numerous caves and the highest
point in that area.
On the way to our next location, we requested to stop by panaroma, an area whereby you can get panaroma view of Göreme. Initially our tour guide refused to stop as it was not in our tour package, after much persuasion, we manage to stop for a few shots. If you join the north tour, make sure you request to stop at panaroma as the view is simply magnificent. An ancient
Greek village deserted after the population exchange (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Populatio n_exchange_between_Greece_and_Turkey) was our next stop, it's interesting how people used to live in caves. After lunch at a local restaurant, we move on to visit a pottery factory (a tour will not be complete without visiting their "sponsors") in a town where woman will not marry a man who don't know pottery. You'll get to see how they make pottery by spinning wheels with foot (a bit like the movie
Ghost). We finally get to visit fairy chimney in Rose Valley and it's simply amazing how rocks can be shaped into mushroom shaped chimney over the years. The part that I hate about tours is that they don't give you enough time to explore a location, always rushing from one place to another. We were given only 30mins, that's simply not enough for me to take pictures! We then moved on to
Imagination Valley whereby the rock formation resemble things like hand and animals, you can just let your imagination run wild. Our tour ends with a visit to carpet factory, of course we were given a tour of how
Turkey double-knot carpet making.
We had dinner at local restaurant before hoping onto our 10hr overnight bus (TL35) to
Denizli (the gateway to our next destination, cotton castle
Pamukkale). You should try the pot-cooked chicken, stew in a sealed pot and break the pot upon serving.
~
Philip"
Read and see more at: http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/saraphilo/5/1262028515/tpod.html
Photos from this trip:
1. "Rock Valley Pension with cozy room"
2. "A
Turkish restaurant near our hostel"
3. "Cappadocia"
4. "Turkish pizza"
5. "
Wall of frescoes in the
Apple Church"
6. "
The Snake Church, with snake on left."
See this TripWow and more at http://tripwow.tripadvisor.com/tripwow/ta-00b5-d346-1636?ytv4=1
- published: 23 Nov 2010
- views: 495