Long Awaited Getaway, Turkey & Greece ; Part 4 - Cappadocia
Our next destination after Santorini was Cappadocia, Turkey. Our journey might seem messy to some, and we admit it was one. We actually planned ALL of our trips based on the cheapest tickets in and out of Sabiha Gokcen International Airport. These specific dates were the cheapest we could find during our trip. From Athens, the flight took around 1 hour and a half to reach Sabiha.
At Sabiha, we had a 5 hours layover - which we spent by eating. By the time we board our plane, it was already night time. We reached Cappadocia at 9pm-ish & took our rented car at the Kayseri International Airport. We booked our car through Budget.com.
The distance from Kayseri to Cappadocia is about 80KM and took around 1 hour and 20 minutes with good traffic. The journey was a smooth one albeit it was at night and we can still see traces of snow alongside the highway. We reached our hotel, had dinner and settled in.
Morning came, and we actually missed out the opportunity to witness the famous hot air balloons parade in Cappadocia. Serves as a lesson that please do not oversleep when you are at a place as rare as this. After breakfast, we head out to witness the strange, extraterrestrial land of Cappadocia. There were so many beautiful spots for photos, you just had to pick any.
And yes, Cappadocia is amazing. It's earthy tones, bizarre rock formations - was nothing I have ever witness throughout my travel experiences.
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| Trying to copy the infamous Murad Osmann. |
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| This place... |
Upon recommendations, we do encountered oddly-shaped and questionable rock formations along the way. We recommend you to hike through Love Valley either on foot or a quad bike. This valley is prohibited for cars/heavy vehicles - they would want to protect the sites from any possible damages. Um, back to the question. Why oddly-shaped you ask? Have a look for yourself why.
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| Tell me the rocks aren't even the slightest bit odd to you. |
On to our next agenda, nope just kidding. We had absolutely no idea what to do in Cappadocia apart from just wing it. So, based on Google & Tripadvisor, they recommended that you MUST spend at least for a few minutes at Rose Valley (Kizil Cukur) while you are there. It was named Rose Valley as it was said to turn rose colour during sunset - which unfortunately we did not read that part until we were already back at the hotel. But we did managed to score some amazing photo opportunities with this remarkable geography.
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| Seem familiar? Hehe. |
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| The man behind my every great photo. |
While you were in Cappadocia, if you are driving, please do not hesitate to just park your car at the roadside and take as many pictures as your heart wants because the scenery changes for every two minutes you were in the car! The roads are mainly empty anyway. There are occasional buses and lorries, just make sure to park your car off the main road and run as fast as you can when any of these approaches.
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| Empty roads - take photos. |
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| More empty roads - take more photos |
After Rose Valley, according to Google - we decided to visit the Fairy Chimney Valley. To our disappointment, it was almost dusk thus we did not spend much time over here. But nonetheless, the other-worldly formations are here too.
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| See what I mean? Um, how? Why? |
Additionally, also through recommendations from Tripadvisor, we had our first authentic Anatolian dinner at Nazar Borek & Cafe. Us being the big eater (basically I think we live for food), agrees that the recommendations do not disappoint. The food was phenomenal, portion was big as usual and the price is affordable. We had a dish (forgot what it's called) consisting of minced beef, pickled chilli with their sauce eaten with rice or bread. To die for. It was that good. It was so good, that we returned the next day for lunch.
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| I still remember how good this was! And missing it terribly. |
Day 2 in Cappadocia, we decided to explore a bit far up to Ihlara Valley situated almost 90KM from Cappadocia and took about 1 and a half hours drive. Unfortunately, due to winter/low season the valley was closed. Or maybe it was closed for maintenance. Either way, no one speaks English over here, so we had to appease ourselves with some photos of the valley and the icy mountain behind it. Ihlara village was a quaint village at the foot of Mount Hasan - which was covered in ice during winter.
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| This cat was waiting for us in front of our room for our entire stay. Wasn't she a beaut? |
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| Overlooking the valley of Ihlara. |
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| This quaint village, almost mistaken as a painting. |
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| Ihlara village from another, empty road. |
Our escapade for Cappadocia ends after Ihlara, when we returned to Goreme for some lunch and head straight to the airport to catch our flight back to Sabiha. I think, if I were given a chance to return, I would stay longer in Cappadocia just to absorb all the strangely beautiful scenery they had.
Our expenses ;
- Flight ;
- Pegasus Airlines, Sabiha-Kayseri-Sabiha (MYR370 for TWO person)
- Accomodation ;
- Turquaz Cave Hotel (MYR 198 for TWO nights)
- Transportation ;
- Budget.com at Kayseri International Airport (43 Euros for 72 hours, full insurance, empty oil tank)
- Diesel (150TL,full tank) - but we only managed to use one bar upon return and the company did refund the balance money equivalent to unused diesel.
- Food ;
- Allocate 25-30 TL per person for one day.
1 comments
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