We’d visited a lot of Turkey during our time here but Cappadocia was the one place we’d not got around to going to. For those who don’t know, Cappadocia is the place with all the balloons they show on the adverts for Turkey or Turkiye as it is now known.
We left Finike and started our journey to Egirdir, our first overnight stop before reaching Cappadocia. En route we stopped at the ancient city of Sagalassos which is on the slopes of the Western Taurus mountain range. The ruins are well preserved and the Roman fountain, Antonine Nymphaeum, which is still working, is impressive. It was believed it was built between 160-180 AD by the Romans. Standing watching the water flow it’s quite something to think it was built around 1800 years ago and people stood just like us and watched the fountain as we were now. The fountain collapsed during an earthquake in the 700s AD and was painstakingly reconstructed by archaeologists.
The theatre is carved into the side of the mountain and had various functions, entertainment, religious and political.
On the road back down the “boys” were taken with another bit of history, albeit modern. Yes a Ford Capri, bright orange, which they had to stop and have a look at!
We had a slight detour on the way to Egirdir. Ian seeing a sign for a ski slope decided, with encouragement from David and Sarah, that we would go and have a look. It was possible to take a ride on a chair lift to some of the way up the mountain to more of the snow. No amount of persuasion was getting me to get on it. So I waved them off and waited behind. I was building myself up to a balloon ride, so let’s not get too carried away!!
We reached Egirdir, our pitstop for the night and had a lovely hotel overlooking Lake Egirdir with Mount Davraz in the background. Egirdir is the fourth largest lake in Turkey. We had a walk around the peninsular of the Lake and then we set off for the long ride to Cappadocia which was five hours away.
The Cappadocia landscape of deep valleys, caves, tunnels and pillars called fairy chimneys date back millions of years and are a result of volcanic eruptions and erosion. The first civilisation was likely in the 6th Century BC, which is about 8,000 years ago.
We decided that we should book the balloon ride sooner rather than later as if the weather wasn’t right and it’s cancelled hopefully we’d get to do it another day. David AKA “the Negotiator”, well he’s also known as Doghouse Dave but that’s another story, negotiated a great deal for a ride the following morning. We banked on it being a bit quieter now and so they’d have spaces they’d be keen to fill and so with Ian also putting in his two penn’orth we got a cracking price.
We were being collected at 5.25am for our balloon ride. I was a little nervous as I’m not good with anything there is a slight risk. But I thought how can I come to Cappadocia and not do this. To fly over the area and see the wonderful sights from above I’d been told is something you cannot NOT do. So off we went. We arrived to see all these balloons laid out. It was a spectacular sight. It was time to get in the balloon, no turning back now eeks!
Our balloon had 16 people, four areas of four people so you had no problem seeing everything. It was a wonderful experience. Our pilot took us down into Love Valley and then up and above Goreme. We were up in the air for about an hour. We thought we’d be really cold so we were really wrapped up but next to the burner it was ok. We were so lucky to get to do the flight as so often they are cancelled due to too much wind. The following few days had no balloons because of too much wind.
We were dropped back at the hotel by 8.45 in time for breakfast, refresh and off sightseeing for the rest of the day
Again as like our trip to SE Turkey, there is too much for one blog, so more to follow in part II.
March 2023