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After a long coach journey from Antalya ( Turkiye), we had finally made it to Cappadocia, the land of a thousand tourist dreams. According to AI its the Turkish land of unique “fairy chimney” rock formations, cave dwellings and underground cities. It sounds like a veritable heaven for today’s armies of camera clicking Instagrammers. I had been thinking of going there for many years but had never got round to committing. But now, at last, thanks to a bargain priced tour , my wife, Chris and I had finally made it.

We had travelled into the area through mountains and then across a flat, featureless plateau. We had arrived after dark ( it was November), so we would have to wait until morning to see the famous landscape. Some have described it as like being on the surface of the moon or visiting an alien planet. We all got ready to channel our inner Captain Kirks.

However in the morning, before we even got to see the weird and wonderful rocks, we were treated to another spectacle. As the sun slowly rose, hundreds of multi-coloured hot air balloons gently took to the air. It was an incredible sight and we even delayed breakfast in order to stand and gawp at it.

Hot air ballooning over the lunar landscape of Cappadocia is a top tourist draw. Our guide Abdullah was very keen for us to give it a go. He said not to go ballooning would be like visiting Paris and not going up the Eiffel Tower or going to Egypt and not seeing the Pyramids. He warned us that if we didn’t go on a sunrise balloon ride we would regret it for the rest of our lives. I think he was on commission! (He’d obviously not been there when Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band had played for over over 4 hours at St James’s Park, Newcastle in 1985 as part of their “Born in the USA” tour.) I don’t like being told what I should do but the real reason that Chris and I didn’t go for it was because we are very nervous of heights. Going up Blackpool Tower as a teenager is still one of the scariest things I’ve done in my life. That’s why we decided to forego the trip of a lifetime and stay earth bound. Lesser reasons were the £150 per person fee and having to get up in the middle of our sleep to catch the glorious glows of the sunrise. We opted for a much needed lie in and a healthier bank balance. We were in a small minority though. About 33 of our group of 40 signed up. One lady even told us that the hot air balloon ride was the only reason she had come on the trip.

The experience of a lifetime for the 33 had to wait however, until the second morning of our stay in Cappadocia. Earlier strong winds had caused a backlog of people wanting to fly. In the meantime, we had the relatively mundane task of touring the area by coach and on foot. Even without the adrenaline rush of taking to the air, I still found it a fascinating and thrilling day.

Cappadocia is an area in the south- central part of Anatolia, in the Asian part of Turkiye. It used to be so remote that persecuted Christians travelled there to hide out during the Arab and Turkish invasions of the 7th to the 11th centuries AD. Now it has become a hugely popular magnet for tourists who flock there from all over the world. It is one of the jewels in Turkiye’s tourist crown.

The strange, highly photogenic landscape was created by the eruptions of 3 volcanoes, now extinct. The lava set into very hard Basalt but at the same time, their ash was compressed and solidified into a softer rock known as “tuff.” Water and wind action has weathered these tuff formations into fantastical shapes. Thus now there are : table mountains, canyon like valleys, whole hillsides of cone-shaped rocks ( My Whippy would have been proud of them), and weird pillars of sculpted soft rock topped with mushroom-like slabs of darker basalt. These eye-catching forests of pillars have been dubbed “fairy chimneys” by the tourist trade, although to many, their phallic shape is what first comes to mind. One area is called “Love Valley” and I don’t think the namers were thinking of fairies or mushrooms.

The refugee Christian communities found the tuff rock very malleable. In other words it was tuff but not tough. They carved out houses and churches, not to mention whole sub-terranean cities. It was a full scale, troglodyte community.

We set off for “Love Valley” after breakfast. It’s a deep canyon and is full of fairy chimneys, the phallic-shaped rocks that some have thought of as fertility symbols. Hence it has been given its “Love” title. The sight of all the fairy chimneys is indeed startling. They seem so unreal They appear in eye-catching clusters and every one is unique and constantly changing because of the way it is being weathered by the elements. As soon as the coach parked, I scampered off, trying to get my own photos of the spectacle. Unfortunately the position of the rising sun hampered my attempts to get a clear cut picture, and pesky hot-air balloons kept descending and blocking the view of some of the most picturesque clusters. I had to duck and dive to get a few half-decent shots. Despite everything though, it was a wondrous sight to take in.

The tourist trade knows this once remote rock-scape is now a massive draw , and it has exploited it to the full. On the edge of the canyon are car parks, refreshment stalls and souvenir hawkers. One can sit on a pony, a horse or a dromedary camel to have a selfie taken. The presence of the horse is very appropriate as Cappadocia is Hittite or ancient Persian for “the land of the beautiful horses.” Of course you can pop in and out of Love Valley in a hot air balloon. The most tacky sight in my opinion was of large love hearts, festooned with plastic flowers and ribbons, where one can sit for that “romantic” souvenir photo. Obviously , the latter gimmick is playing on the modern name for this unique valley. Mass tourism and commercialisation is doing its best to spoil a natural phenomenon .

After our alloted time we all piled on the coach, gulped down some water as it was getting hot, and drove on to the next place on our Cappadocian tourist trail. It was called Goreme and is one of the few remaining settlements where rock cut churches and fairy chimneys are still inhabited. It has an atmospheric honeycomb of cave dwellings etched into a steep hillside. We went into one multi-storied rock house which was open to tourists. It was (is) very tall and divided into several floors connected by steep, narrow ladders. Each floor got progressively smaller as we got closer to the top of the cone shaped rock. It was quite precarious as we clambered gingerly up and down the metal ladders. ( a modern addition.) The floors are carpeted and have low-slung sofas covered with richly coloured textile throws. Windows had been cut out of the rock but had no glass. It was like visiting Fred and Wilma Flintstone or their neighbours, the Rubbles. The Turkish attendant had obviously cottoned on to this, as he greeted visitors with an enthusiastic ” Yabadabadoo!” Once out of the quaint rock house we climbed the hill in increasingly hot and bright sunshine. As we ascended, the views of the surrounding volcanic landscape were impressive. Goreme is amazing even though now heavily commercialised. Rock cones have been turned into houses, hotels, restaurants, bars, shops and almost anything else you can think of. All types of tourists are catered for from back-backers to luxury seekers. All sorts of activities are on offer. One agency we passed was advertising : hot air balloon flights, horse riding tours, camel safaris, Quad Bike tours, jeep safaris, a vintage car tour, a Turkish night party or a “performance” of the Whirling Dervishes. The choice is mind boggling. One wonders how much longer the delicate natural environment can withstand such relentless pressure.

On we drove to Monks Valley, another wonderland of weird, phallic rock pillors. The difference this time was that we could walk amongst them instead of just viewing from above. Each pillar of tuff is topped by a black, basalt cap. Interspersed with the rock forest were bushes and trees sporting bright yellow, autumn leaves, gleaming in the sun. The valley is extraordinary but by the time we got there in the late morning, lots of people were pouring in. It was the weekend and also the start of a school holiday, so there were large numbers of Turkish families. We had to queue to get in and even queue to get out! The entrance and exit are controlled by turn-styles. At the head of the valley are fast food, ice-cream and souvenir stalls, plus restaurants, toilets and a large coach park, which had at least 20 coaches in it when we left. A quiet valley of fantastic rocks has been changed into a busy tourist mecca.

After a set-menu lunch in an underground rock restaurant we visited part of an underground city created by the refugee Christian and monastic communities in medieval times. It sounds exciting but was actually a bit of an anti-climax as we only saw a few rooms used for strange or to house animals. We were warned not to go in if we suffered from claustrophobia as there were some very narrow passages with low roofs. However it was fine. Obviously the guide has never been in the caves and caverns of the Peak District of Derbyshire near where I grew up. The Peak Cavern in Castleton actually has a long, low entrance nicknamed “lumbago walk.” We weren’t issued with helmets or anything. Health and safety seemed to be very casual in Turkiye compared to what we were used to.

Finally , on that hectic but memorable day, we went to witness a spiritual ceremony by a company of Whirling Dervishes. It wasn’t a tourist performance but a genuine religious ritual. It lasted for 45 minutes and we were warned not to take photos or applaud. The Dervish ceremony is an important part of the Sufi Muslim religion. I’ll write more about the Dervishes in my next Turkiye blog which describes a visit to Konya where the mystical Sufi sect was born.

On our second full day in Cappadocia, we had a small lie- in as most of the rest were doing their balloon rides at sunrise. They came back full of smiles and enthusiasm although wrapped up very well as it had been very cold up in the sky. I was pleased that they had enjoyed it. Once we set off at 9.30 we drove to a traditional carpet making cooperative. One of the reasons the tour was so cheap was that places like this paid the tour company to bring its groups there. Some people were resentful and didn’t want to go in but, we had no choice but to go with the flow. There was nothing else of interest around the workshop. We were given complimentary drinks ( we had pomegranite tea) and were treated to an interesting talk and demonstration by a Belgian guy who used to be priest and a Turkish lady in traditional dress. Some of the hand -knotted carpets were absolutely beautiful. Unfortunately, at the end, salesmen attached themselves to us and tried to persuade us to buy. The attitude seems to be that all foreign tourists are rich and have money to burn. Our salesman even followed us to the toilet but had the decency to wait outside. After a while he gave up and we just had a pleasant chat with others in the group while we waited for a couple of people to make purchases. I lashed out and bought a box of Turkish Delights for our neighbours who were kindly putting our bins out and back in.

Next came a visit to an interesting ceramics museum and gallery followed by a self service lunch in a restaurant packed with tourist groups, like us. It felt a bit like we were being processed on a conveyer belt. We stopped off for a panoramic view of an abandoned Greek village spread up a picturesque hillside. In the early 1920s, when the modern state of Turkey was rising, phoenix- like out of the ashes of the Ottoman Empire, Greece and Turkey agreed to conduct a massive exchange of populations. Some people would call it “ethnic cleansing. People whose families had lived in a place for generations, suddenly had to abandon their homes for ever and go to live in another country. In some ways it was a tragedy, as in the old Ottoman days, both nationalities had lived happily together. Now Turkey is littered with haunting, abandoned villages. Presumably it’s the same in Greece. It would have been nice to explore the old streets but we only had time to clock the view and take our photos. I believe many of the old Greek dwellings are now being turned into hotels or shops.

Abdullah, our guide, left one of the best experiences to last. We went back to the village of Goreme and visited it’s outstanding open- air museum. It’s one of the largest monastic settlements in Cappadocia and contains more than than 30 Byzantine- era churches hewn out of the rock. We visited six of them including three 11th century columned churches set into a steep hillside. We saw long rock tables where the Christians ate, alters and crosses, domes and columns, and, best of all some fascinating old frescoes, painted on to the rock. We saw angels and seraphim, the Last Supper, the Crucifixion and other religious scenes all done in the flat Byzantine style of the Eastern Roman Empire. It was a bit strenuous clambering up and down steep staircases to see them but it was worth the effort, at least in my opinion. You cannot beat an ancient fresco painted over a thousand years ago. It’s not exactly the Tardis, but such paintings allow one to travel back in time.

The Open Air Museum was the grand finale of our whistle stop tour of Cappadocia. It had been a memorable if somewhat hectic visit. All the boxes on our tourist list had been ticked. I would like to go back there someday and have a more leisurely exploration of this unique region’s sights. For the time being though, it had been great. I had managed to do 3 satisfying things in 2 full-on days — 1 See some of the geological, historical and artistic highlights of one of Turkiye’s most stimulating areas. 2. Continue my on-going, long term study of mass tourism in action. It is still enthusiastically trying to kill the goose that laid the golden egg. 3. Have interesting conversations and get to know a whole bunch of fascinating people. As someone said to me on another escorted holiday – “”I’m always up for a conversation.”

The next morning it was an early start. We had the long road journey back to Antalya ahead of us. Who knows what surprises lay in store for us? As we drove off after our last Cappadocian breakfast, the sun was rising again along with a hundred or more hot air balloons. Another excited group of tourists were having their experience of a lifetime. It was a spectacular sight to drink in before we turned south and headed away from the land of fairy chimneys, troglodyte villages and frescoed rock churches. Even though Chris and I didn’t take to the air it had still been a memorable adventure. One outstanding sight still waited for us down the road, but that will have to wait for the next blog…..