In addition to the famous air balloons there are a lot of other things to do in the Cappadocia area!
Swimming at the Local Cave Hotel
We stayed at the Local Cave House Hotel the first night and it was awesome! It is very Instagram famous so I wasn’t sure it would live up to the hype, but it definitely did. Also, for under $90 a night, what a steal.
For a little background to those that don’t know (hi mom) Cappadocia is well known for their rock structures, caves and therefore cave hotels. The local Cave House Hotel is one of the most recommended on the internet and now I know it is for good reason. We spent the morning and afternoon of our first day there chilling by the pool and napping a bit after our early morning balloon ride. Also, the breakfast was incredible- they just kept bringing out more and more dishes.
Horse back riding
There are many popular tours in Cappadocia and one of them is a sunset horse back riding tour. Ryan has never been on a horse before, so this seemed like a good opportunity to change that!
We booked through our hotel and it ended up being quite the adventure! It turned out to be a tour of just Ryan and I with the guide. Although, the guide was a 10 year old local Turkish boy. He was so small- we were definitely a practice tour for him, but we didn’t mind.
It was about 2 hours of wandering through rose valley and then we stopped at a viewpoint with some other tours for sunset.
Red Tour
They make it easy in Cappadocia with all of the main tours named after colors. We decided on the red tour vs the green or blue tours as you hit the main sites not too far outside Göreme which is where we were staying and one of the main villages in the Cappadocia region.
We started the morning seeing the Uchisar Castle and learning about the caves that people used to live in.
Our next stop was more rock formations! It was cool to hear about how these unique spaces were formed through many hundreds of years.
Before lunch we saw the famous Göreme open air museum which is similar to the rest of caves where people lived until the 1930s.
The next stop was a tour and demo at a pottery workshop- of course I was quite excited! I even got to try out their kick wheel for a bit.
Our last stop was to see some more rock structures in love valley of course so here are a few more shots. I thought it was called love valley due to the …unique… shape of the rock formations, but apparently from above the valley is in the shape of a heart and that is how the name was formed! 😂
Goreme Town
There isn’t a ton to do in the town itself, but we did see some of the traditional rug shops, souvenir stands, and saw lots of wild cats and dogs! We ate mostly traditional Turkish food like kebab and drank a lot of tea. Being a Muslim country, alcohol isn’t super commonly found. For example, none of the restaurants or hotels served drinks so I guess that means we are saving up our beverages for the beach!
❤️Melanie
Smiles from Miles Away 