I recently had the opportunity to travel to Turkey on holiday. As both a landscape and portrait photographer, I had been eyeing Cappadocia for some time to see the hot-air balloons that took over Instagram, and I finally got the chance to witness these sights with my own two eyes.
Note: Contrary to the title, there are no horses mentioned in this blog post :)
Cappadocia
I follow many different travel bloggers, hoping to get some inspiration about where to go next and what to see. This year in particular, Cappadocia kept appearing time and time again all over my social media, and I took that as a sign that it was time to finally check Turkey off my bucket list. A couple bookings on Star Alliance partners later, and I found myself on the journey from Los Angeles to Cappadocia, the land of beautiful horses.
After several flight delays early in the morning, we finally arrived in Kayseri in the early afternoon. Our accommodation, Koza Cave Hotel, was generous enough to send out a driver to pick us up, and seeing as Kayseri isn’t the busiest airport in the world (currently the airport only serves 12 destinations), we had no trouble finding Mustafa. Soon after disembarking, we began our 45-minute drive to Koza Cave Hotel in Goreme, with Mustafa giving us a brief history lesson about the origins of Cappadocia.
Upon arriving in Goreme, the first thing I noticed was that the town itself was smaller than I had imagined. Everything is in walking distance, even with our hotel being at the top of Goreme Heights. Many of the shops are family owned, and my personal favorite was Galerie Ikman, a handmade-carpet shop that’s quickly capturing the attention of many travel bloggers around the world for it’s beautiful carpets and a spacious room in the back for taking photos. Be warned -- this shop does tend to get busy in the afternoon, and the owners do charge between 50-100 Turkish Lira for just a few minutes of time to take pictures. My advice -- come around 7:00am (right when the shop opens), and you’ll have the entire store to yourself. My family and I spent about 30 minutes taking shots from different angles, and at no point did we ever feel rushed.
“I couldn’t find aladdin’s Carpet”
- @dan.kphotography
The region of Cappadocia is primarily known for it’s hot air balloons, but that’s not the only thing to do here. In the evening, we took a sunset tour on ATVs (~28 Euro) and drove through the Rose Valley, Red Valley, Sword Valley, Çavuşin Old Villages, and finally ended up at the Love Valley just in time for sunset. The trails are actually quite dusty, but the agency that we booked with -- Gorgeous Turkey Tours -- provided surgical masks and helmets to minimize the amount of dust that sticks to your face.
I can’t really describe in words what it felt like going to bed later that night. I was physically exhausted from a day’s worth of traveling (I also forgot to eat dinner), and right upon landing we dropped our bags off and went sightseeing. I thought I’d sleep easy, but the excitement of what I was about to see the next morning kept me awake. All the travel accounts and blogs that I follow say the view from the morning is unlike any other, and I was finally about to experience it with my own two eyes.
Sunrise was everything I imagined and then some. I witnessed a view that’s led to the rise of Cappadocia as a tourist destination, with 2.9 million visitors traveling to the region in 2018 (for reference, Santorini hosts approximately 2 million visitors a year). Between 6:15-6:30am is when the majority of the balloons make their way up, and being at the highest rooftop of Cappadocia we had the best view of it all.
What made this view so remarkable was a combination of the balloons, the ambience created by Koza Cave Hotel, and the people! The handmade carpets and pillows laid out provide an authentic cultural feel. Also, since Koza Cave Hotel is a very small hotel (only 10 rooms), the space wasn’t crowded at all. The other guests were happy to take turns with pictures and at no point did it feel like the space was overcrowded. I met two travelers from Orange County on their honeymoon (Jon and Kathy, if you’re reading this, let’s meet up soon!) who are one of the brightest and most friendly couples I’ve had the pleasure of meeting. I also had a chance to meet TheSundayChapter, one of Australia’s best travel and fashion influencers (seriously, go check her out her feed, she posts amazing pictures from all over the world)!
After enjoying the view for a couple hours, we then ate a quick breakfast and then were off on our first tour of the region: Gorgeous Turkey’s Private Red Tour. While private tours are more expensive (~80-100 euro vs. ~40-50 euro), one of the things I value most when traveling is time, and with a private tour you can work with the guide to personalize your tour to your liking.
The first stop on our tour was Uchisar Castle. Remember what I mentioned about being able to “personalize your tour?” We arranged for our driver to pick us up around 8:30am, which meant that we got to Uchisar around 9:00am, well before any of the tour buses arrived. As a result we had the entire area to ourselves to explore!
Following Uchisar Castle we went to visit the Goreme Open Air Museum, where you can see rock-cut churches carved by the early Christian monks. We opted to skip Çavuşin as we had already drove past on the ATV tour, and instead headed to Avanos for an early lunch. Following that we made our way to Paşabağı, where spectacular mushroom-shaped rock formations can be seen. The last stop on the tour was the Devrent Valley, also sometimes referred to as the Imagination Valley because the shapes you see in the rock-cut formations are left to your imagination.
The next day we opted to see the view of the balloons from the opposite angle -- inside the balloon itself. I highly recommend booking with Butterfly Balloons (~190 euro per person, 10% discount when paying with cash). I was very impressed with the professionalism of this company -- our pick-up was right on time at 5:00am for the office to make our payments and be assigned a driver, after which we enjoyed a small breakfast and left promptly at 5:30am for the Love Valley, where our balloon was ready to take us up. I’m not sure what other companies are like, but Butterfly Balloons left us absolutely worry-free and had us back to our hotel by 8:30am in time for our 9:00am Green Tour. Do note that these balloon tours can be cancelled at any time due to weather, and for that reason I recommend staying at least 3 nights in Cappadocia.
Check out my full photo album from Turkey here!
For our last tour, we once again went with Gorgeous Turkey’s Green Tour, which is an 8-hour long journey through the Derinkuyu Underground City, the Ihlara Canyon, and Pigeon Valley. There’s a bit of walking involved in this one, which was nice as we hadn’t done much hiking since we arrived to Cappadocia.
Where to stay in Cappadocia
Koza Cave Hotel
I absolutely love this hotel. Sam, Mustafa, and his family are among the most hospitable people that I’ve ever met. Koza Cave is situated at the top of Goreme Heights, and offers the highest rooftop in Cappadocia (perfect for seeing the balloons). Since this family-owned hotel only has 10 rooms, it never gets too crowded on the rooftop, and you’ll likely find yourself getting nice and cozy with the other guests as the rooftop also isn’t necessarily that large. As this is no doubt Instagram’s favorite accommodation in Cappadocia, I’d recommend booking well in advance!
Mithra Cave Hotel
An excellent alternative to Koza Cave Hotel is it’s neighbor, Mithra Cave Hotel. I actually stayed one night at this hotel and while Koza Cave is still my preference, I found that Mithra also has it’s benefits. For one, the rooftop is more spacious, however the hotel does have 4 times the amount of rooms than Koza Cave so you’ll find that it’s more crowded during sunrise. The primary photography area is located at this table where the staff set up a nice breakfast to set the mood for your picture. There will be a line! Mithra has about 40 rooms and noticeably more guests than Koza, so expect to wait a bit longer to get the shots that you want.
Note: there’s a private roof on top of the kitchen which you can reserve ahead of time, so if you have a special occasion (engagement, wedding photos, etc.) this might be of interest to you!
What I would’ve done differently
Instead of spending an entire day on the Green Tour (09:00 - 17:00), I would’ve much rather used that time to explore on my own. In particular I would’ve made my way over to the Love Valley to capture morning shots on the cliffs as the balloons are making their way across the terrain. This is where most travelers come for engagement/proposal/couple photoshoots, often going to the lengths of renting a 1954 Plymouth Belvedere as part of their shoots. Oh well, at least I can save that opportunity for the next time I come here with my significant other :)