September 24, 2025 - Cappadocia to Istanbul, Turkey

Our trip is winding down. We left beautiful Cappadocia this morning to head back to Istanbul this morning. On the way to the airport we stopped to take a few pictures.

This spot is a popular one for the tour bus circuit!

After snapping a few shots we were on to see a pottery demonstration and, of course, have time to shop!

He started with one piece of clay and formed four sections to make the wine carafe.

It was amazing to watch, and when he had it completed, he cut it open to show us that the inside was hallow! It was pretty amazing.

The artists that paint the pottery and create the designs are usually only working with a brush in hand about two hours a day. They make sure they take long breaks because their hands will cramp up holding the brushes for long periods,

Some of the larger carafes and beautiful pieces were priced at $10,000 USD or more! No, we didn't buy any!

After this stop we had another hour drive to the airport for our flight back to Istanbul. It takes over an hour to get from the airport to our hotel so we arrived around 5pm. Wendy, Shari, Bill, Tobey, and I went to get our last beef duren and to look for the Turkish Delight shop we had seen earlier in the trip. We will save our final shopping for tomorrow. Good night for now.

September 23, 2025 - Cappadocia, Turkey

Tobey was sick overnight and still wasn't feeling well when we got up this morning, but decided to go ahead and take the hot air balloon ride. It was quite the experience! The Royal Balloon company picked us up at 5:25am and we had about a 20 minute drive to our take off site. Out of the van, we walked through other balloons being inflated to arrive at our balloon.

It was pretty cool watching them inflate the balloon. All 16 of the people on our tour signed up for this excursion. The basket we went up in held 22 passengers, the pilot and co-pilot!
We used a small ladder to get into the balloon. It wasn't very graceful, but we made it!

Once we were in the basket, we waited until they had the balloon fully inflated before our take-off.

We could watch as other balloons were getting ready to go. They launch over 100 balloons, then about 30 minutes later, another set of balloons take off! It was amazing.

It was about 6:30 when we took off. We all expected the flight to be bumpier, I think. We were surprised at how calm and peaceful it was.
After taking about 9000 photos, it was hard to narrow it down for this post, but here are some of the sight we saw!

As we were getting closer to our landing spot, we watched as another balloon landed - ON ITS TRAILER! Here is a video of their landing. https://youtube.com/shorts/pCgm_0LuW8E

We soon spotted our trailer and watched as we were guided down to our trailer.

The ground crew helped secure our landing.

And we made it safely down - even though Tobey did give us a scare mid-flight. He was dehydrated from being sick and fainted. Fortunately, he came to and we gave him water and he was back on his feet.

Our tour group - everyone did the ride and it was awesome!

Our pilot, Ahmed, said it takes over two years to get your license and he has been a pilot over four years.

Yes, we were treated to mimosas and chocolate covered strawberries, as well as receiving a gold medal for our experience!

We headed back to the hotel and EVERYONE was still excited out this first part of our day! After some breakfast we headed out for the next part of the day - minus one. Tobey decided to stay in and rest, so I went solo on the next part of the adventures.

Next stop was the Goreme Open-Air Museum which is comprised of frescoed rock churches dating back to the fourth century. There were amazing rock formations which are know as fairy chimneys, an entire village and rock-carved churches.

Most of this area is tufa rock, a variety of limestone formed when carbonate minerals precipitate out of water in unheated rivers or lakes.

Wendy was taking a break in the kitchen / storeroom!

During the 1st century Christianity was forbidden but the area was good for them because the landscape made it easier for them to hide from the pagans. Until the 11th century, this area was a functional village mostly inhabited by hermits and monks. As late as 1923, there were still Greek Orthodox monks residing here. Most of the carvings and paintings found inside are from the 7th-10th century AD. In one of the churches, there are frescos which are pictured on the sign board below.

Our next stop was an underground city. More than 100 underground cities from the Hittite period and were used by Christians when the Turks arrived. The underground cities were used for defensive purposes and were over 260 feet deep. This city had 11 floors and we were able to see four of them. It wasn't as impressive to me as other things we had seen, but the history behind it made it worth visiting.
Our tour director, Nilufer ducking down to go through one of the passage ways.

Ventilation opening

Stone door they rolled across the openings for protection

We had a lunch break after the cave city at the Fat Boy Restaurant! Wendy and I shared this dish. It is cooked in the pot and you use a small hammer to tap it open. Inside was a delicious chicken and vegetable stew like dish. We had it with rice, mashed potatoes, and bread.

You would think the day would be over with everything we had done so far, but it wasn't! We stopped at the Stone Castle Jewelry Shop and had a chance to look around. Once we finished our browsing, we walked across the street to see Pidgeon Valley. More rock cut houses ... and lots of pidgeons.



The next scheduled event was a hike in Love Valley. Only eight of us wanted to hike, so our driver dropped us off and took the others back to the hotel. According to the tale, divine forces created the valley's formations as a symbol of eternal love and a warning against discord. Love Valley's distinctive phallic-shaped rock formations were formed over millions of years through volcanic activity and erosion.
I thought this formation looked like a native American chief.
Our group of eight hiked about 2-1/2 miles.

Our guide, Nilufer, took a break!

After finishing our hike we arrived back to the hotel around 5pm. Tobey was a bit better and joined us for dinner. Tomorrow we head back to Istanbul for our last couple of days.

September 22, 2025 - Antalya to Cappadocia, Turkey

We had a LONG travel day today as we made our way from Antalya to Cappadocia through the Taurus Mountains - over 300 miles.

Our first stop was in Konya to visit the Mevlana Museum. Konya is the spiritual home of Sufism. The main belief of Sufism is that unification with Allah is the most important goal of an individual's life. They believe that mysticism and its methods are the best way to achieve that. The founder of the mystic brotherhood ritual dance was Mevlana Cealeddin-i Rumi, most commonly called Rumi. He was a poet and believed that the use of music, dance, and poetry as a path to reach God. He thought music helped his devotees focus on the Devine. It was from these ideas that the practice of whirling Dervishes developed into a ritual form.

As we entered, we went first into the Tilavat Chamber, where Tumi's tomb is located. He died in 1273AD. This is where the Dervishes read the Koran when it was used when the Mevlevi Lodge was functioning. There were several tombs of Dervishes in the museum.

Rumi is actually buried underground here, but this is his sarcophagus in the museum. The turquoise blue tower outside is the "tomb." The turquoise color symbolizes wisdom, skill, and strength for the Turkish people.

Other tombs


The calligraphy and books on display were amazing.

Outside in the courtyard were several rooms with examples of the Dervish life and artifacts from the 1200s.


We really were amazed at everything we saw. It's hard to grasp the magnitude of everything in just a couple of hours.

After our museum stop we had lunch in town and it was pretty delicious. Tobey and I shared the Tirit Tandir. It was a baked lamb and beef dish with potato and bread chunks underneath and wonderful spices. The restaurant also had really great bread to eat with it.

After lunch it was back on the bus and drive, drive, drive to Cappadocia. We went by one of the volcanos in Turkey.

And on and on we went until we started to enter Cappadocia. Cappadocia means "Land of Beautiful Horses" in Persian. The name reflects the region's historical significance as a major equine center under Persian rule.

We finally arrived at our hotel about 7:00pm and were tired. After a quick (but very noisy) dinner in the hotel dining room we are settling in for the night. It will be a VERY early morning because we have a hot air balloon ride scheduled and our pick up time is 5:25am. The internet at the hotel is terrible, so it will be a couple days before this will post. Good night!