Cappedocia: Welcome to Goreme!

We woke up after our 12 hour overnight bus sleepy eyed in a complete fairyland. It was almost like the past 4 days was a dream & we have arrived in heaven or something. Or maybe  even a different planet! Goreme is like no other place I have been to. It is a small dreamy town located within Cappadocia (Kapadokya) which is a huge historical area known for its stunning volcanic rock formations.

We arrived disoriented due to the contrast of the big city of Istanbul to the quaint and peaceful feeling of Goreme. Really we had no plans upon arriving to Goreme and no idea of really anything about Cappadocia, so we went straight to an information booth to find out where to stay.

We settled on the Traveler's Cave Dorm (thanks for the recommendation Shanna!) and dropped off our stuff in the hostel. The Cave Dorm sounds like just what it was, literally a dorm style room that was in a cave. Pretty cool actually! Well I am also failing to mention the elation we felt when entering the room due to the fact that we realized we would be sleeping in beds. For the past 5 days (6 for Sam) we had slept on an airplane, chairs, the hard ground, a bus, but never an actual bed! I didn't realize how much of a difference the little things can make (like a soft place to sleep).

After spending some time joyfully laying down in our beds we decided to explore Goreme, get some breakfast, and do some sightseeing.

We decided to check out Goreme's open air museum which is supposed to be a really cool site. The open air museum had caves that you could go in an explore that were still pretty intact. There were also tons of churches with murals from ancient times as well as graves with real bones (creepy yeah?) The open air museum also gave you some killer views of the surrounding area.

After exploring the museum we sat down to eat our Eckmeck (bread) which was also our lunch (pooor college kids). After eating we decided to hike up some more and see what else we could find. We found the Rose Valley which lies in between the Love Valley. The Love Valley is where the very famous phallic shaped Fairy Chimneys are. Although we didn't get to see the Love Valley we did have a blast poking around this other valley though!

I will say that Goreme was freezing compared to Istanbul. We were out hiking around for almost 5 hours and our lips were practically blue. Needless to say it was time to trek back to the hostel & get warm.

After showering and cleaning up we went to get some dinner. We went to this place called Pide Express which is supposed to have the best Pide in Goreme. Pide is basically a narrow diamond shaped pizzaesque food which is delicious! We were very happy with our purchase :)

Pide!

All in all we were extremely happy with the first day in Goreme & actually surprised that we managed to have such an active day after spending the night in a bus. Needless to say we were pumped for our nice warm beds waiting for us to sleep in & excited to see what the next day would bring.

xoxo

Becca