Hot air balloons over Cappadocia.
Weird landscapes, hot air balloons and a complicated history make Cappadocia in Turkey something a little bit special.
The call to prayer shoots down the Ihlara Valley like water from a newly-breached dam. For a few seconds it soaks into every gap the scene can spare; clambering up the escarpment, pushing beneath the smooth rock overhangs and floating along the new channels cut by the uncharacteristically flooded river.
And then there is absolute peace again, the sheep in respectful silence and the willows with no breeze to fluster them.
Few venture through the second half of the Ihlara Valley. The riverside restaurants of Belisirma seem like a logical end point; the concentration of centuries-old churches cut into the rock has reached a crescendo, the most dramatic canyon cliffs have been passed and the path on the left bank has peeled off onto the exit road.
But continuing on the right bank gives a different experience. The chiselled canyon walls that stare down like a thousand Mount Rushmores give way as the valley widens. The rock comes in layers, rather than nose and cheek-like bulges, with avalanches of moss-covered mint green cast-offs peppering the slopes.
This is a different Cappadocia; one of a broader epic sweep rather than the usual high density blizzard of surreal detail. Yet look intently, and familiar signs of human life emerge; caves that have distinct straight-edged rooms when you poke your nose into them, square slots that look like pigeon holes at the entrance to a block of flats, rectangular windows so high in the rock that no-one could possibly access them.
Cappadocia is a place where nature gets kooky and man contrives to make things even odder. The continual puzzles of why and how don’t just spark the imagination – they turn it into a roaring furnace. And often the answer lies in what is not there.
“Think of it as a half apple,” says guide Cem Güllüoğlu outside the castle in Uçhisar. It doesn’t look much like a castle – more a sloppily upturned pudding sticking out on the hilltop. “It used to be much bigger, but a lot has fallen off or been eroded away, meaning you can see inside the core.” The windows, therefore, are not really supposed to be windows. They’re interior doorways – but the steps leading up to them have been wiped out along with the original rock facades.
And the little slots that look like pigeon holes? “They’re pigeon holes,” says Cem. “Up until maybe 60 years ago, people kept pigeons there. They would collect the manure once or twice a year to help fertilise the soil.”
Throughout the centuries, humans have turned the Cappadocian landscape into something of a giant Swiss cheese. But layers of history are lost in the process. “What was once a hermit’s cave may be enlarged to be a place to keep dogs,” says Cem. “And then it is made bigger again to become a stable. We can see it was a stable now, but we don’t know what it was before that.”
It is thought that caves were being carved out and used by the Hittite Empire back in the second millennium BC, although much of the region’s troglodyte maze can be pinned to the Byzantine period.
Cappadocia may be in the centre of modern Turkey, but it is not particularly Turkish. The Turks didn’t arrive here until the 11th century, and Turkey didn’t exist until the 20th. Until the large-scale population swaps with Greece in the 1920s, many of Cappadocia’s inhabitants were Greek.
This explains why many of the complexes burrowed into the rock are not mosques, but monasteries. The grandest of them all is the Göreme Open Air Museum, a visually striking treasure-chest of centuries old chapels, churches, kitchens and refectories. A giant, gnarled cone by the entrance – it looks like a KKK hood that needs a good wash – was once a five-floor dormitory for nuns.
The interiors are even more remarkable than the exteriors, however. The paintings in some of the chapels are remarkably well preserved. They’re seccos rather than frescos – painted on dry plaster rather than wet – but the detail is mesmerising.
In the Snake Church, St George – who was from Cappadocia – and St Theodore are depicted slaying a dragon. But it’s St Onuphrius that elicits a double take – he’s a hermaphrodite with fulsome breasts and a long white beard.
The Black Church – so named because its sole window was the only source of outside light – has every bit of wall and roof space covered. The individual scenes flit from Judas’ betrayal kiss to an angel showing Jesus’ empty tomb, but it’s the saturated cumulative force that renders the visitor awestruck.
Where it was not possible to excavate upwards, the Byzantines dug down, creating a network of underground cities. Only ten to 15% per cent of the one at Derinkuyu is now accessible to visitors, but it gives an indication of what a labyrinth it was.
The system is remarkably similar to the one at Uçhisar Castle – it just goes in the opposite direction. The larger rooms are nearer ground level, used for stabling and storage, but it becomes a tighter squeeze the further in you go.
It would be fair to say that claustrophobes are not going to enjoy the Derinkuyu Underground City. The tunnels that connect between the levels are deliberately small and narrow. It wasn’t that the inhabitants were particularly small – they would have had to negotiate the maze hunched over in the same way that visitors do now.
The cities were uninhabited most of the time and retreated to in times of need. Thus they were designed for self-defence rather than comfort – between the 5th and 10th centuries AD, the region came under sustained attack from Arabic invaders. Attackers would have to come through in single file, and in the dark – the linseed oil-lit lamps occupying the still visible niches in the walls would have been extinguished. And the further down the enemy got, the more obstacles they’d encounter.
Periodically through the cramped descent to 50 metres below the surface, alcoves are dug into the wall. Inside them are heavy stone discs that can be rolled across the corridor. They’re immovable from the outside – you’d struggle to find a modern bank vault with higher security doors – and a small hole in the middle allowed the defenders to stab spears through, picking off their foes one by one.
The patterns across Cappadocia’s weird Gruyerescape repeat from settlement to settlement; the old villages are built around a central place of refuge – be it an underground city or easily defended high ground. As such defences have drifted into obsolescence, the cave homes on the hills have been abandoned in favour of modern new towns on the flat. Sometimes this leads to ghost villages, like the one at Çavuşin. A hillside of crumbling homes stares back at onlookers, the dark holes cut for doors and windows looking like blinded eyes and howling, open mouths.
Yet elsewhere, the old cave homes have been given a new lease of life. In Ürgüp, the Esbelli hill is a tough slog upwards from the city centre, but the decrepit old caves on it have been renovated. Some are homes to former Istanbul urbanites who have decided to have a lifestyle change and taste the rural life; others have been converted into small guesthouses and hotels for visitors who prefer to stay somewhere highly distinctive. The modern-cave look at the six-room Serinn House is a classic example – volcanic stone walls cut from the rock and barrel-vaulted ceilings are paired off with self-consciously modern design mag furniture.
Such discerning digs are complimented by the Turasan winery on the lower part of the hill. A visit quickly dismisses any absurd romantic images of peasants trampling on grapes in vats, producing vaguely serviceable plonk that makes up for its taste with bags of charming rural authenticity. Turkey’s wine industry is surprisingly big, and Turasan’s operation is unashamedly modern. A peek around the back shows towering, temperature-controlled fermentation tanks, and there’s a strong emphasis on consistency of taste in the wines available for sample.
The thorough induction into Turkish viticulture, however, comes at the cellar bar of the Şıra hotel in Uçhisar. Murat Yankı studied to be a sommelier in Italy and lectures on wine at two Turkish colleges. When he’s in Cappadocia, however, he offers wine tasting sessions that go far beyond lining up the glasses and sipping a few different varietals. His seminars go into the history of wine – starting with how the oldest traces of wine have been dated back to a 7,500-year-old settlement in north-western Iran.
These are just the oldest traces that can be accurately dated, however. The domestic grape has been cultivated in what is now Turkey since 8,000BC. The presentation moves onto ancient trading routes, where wine would be rafted down the Euphrates and Tigris rivers to other civilisations and how Cappadocia was the key wine-producing hub for the Hittites. It’s possible that the word ‘wine’ stems from the Hittite word “wiyana”.
The lecture concludes with tastings of wines made from native Anatolian grapes. The cherry-chocolately Öküzgözü from the southwest is arguably the best bet with hearty Turkish casseroles, kebabs and grilled meats, while the delicate Narince is a beautifully rounded accompaniment for oily fish and spicy chicken dishes.
As for the local hero, the Cappadocia-grown Emir makes for a highly acidic white. But Murat concedes that Cappadocia isn’t ideal for wine growing. “It’s too dry here,” he says. “The Hittites grew in Cappadocia not for the climate but because it was easy to transport the wine up the river to their capital.”
The dry, predictable weather patterns may not be perfect for grapes, but they certainly work well for hot air balloons. Standing in a darkened pre-dawn field, watching whirring fans turn flattened fabric into intimidatingly large buoyant orbs, Mehmet Halis Aydogan from Voyager Balloons tells how the balloon flight industry has, well, ballooned.
“When we started in 1998, there were only five balloons available. Only 20 people could go up each day,” he says. “Now it’s 176 registered balloons, and 1,200 passengers. It’s not unusual to see 100 balloons in the sky at once.
“There’s a reason for this though – it’s one of the most reliable places in the world. In 2012, we flew 334 days out of 366. The weather makes that impossible elsewhere.”
The industrial scale of the operation takes away the romance somewhat, but it adds to the spectacle. The bulging envelopes of a dozen balloons squidge against each other as they inflate in synchronicity. And when the flotilla takes to the sky, it adds an extra layer of photogenic majesty to the horizon.
A balloon flight has a sense of grace that no plane or helicopter – no matter how dainty – can begin to emulate. The basket floats peacefully at just the right height – high enough to get the full panorama, but low enough to be able to pick out the detail.
The experience opens the eyes to how supremely, implausibly bizarre Cappadocia is. In places, the rock looks so smooth that it may as well have been vacuum-formed. In others, pudgy-bottomed pink and red formations peel off from the main hillside like petals. Narrow, sheet-like ridges spider out from flat-topped mountains and absurd ‘fairy chimneys’ with their precariously-balanced stone caps stand to attention like mildly comical army cadets.
There’s an awful lot going on, but start piecing the jigsaw together and the bombardment of quirky geology begins to make sense. The table-like mountains aren’t mountains at all – they’re all roughly the same height and part of the same plateau. It’s just that valleys and gorges have been cut through soft stone which is little more than volcanic ash pressed together. The rock formations are part of that plateau too – the coloured stripes match up at just the right level. They’ve been chipped away at over thousands of years, the wind attacking from the side and rainwater from the top. It falls, it freezes in below zero conditions, and expands to drive a deeper wedge into already porous surfaces.
The rain, when it does come, has another effect. It brings out an array of colours in the rocks that can be choked and muted by the dusty summer. Just to the north-east of Göreme, ridges spread forth from one of the plateau’s remaining table tops, like spindly fingers from a chubby palm. After the storm, the ravishing reds and roses that give the valleys their name are in full flourish.
The walking trails that loop around them, ducking between rocky bulges and meandering along precipices, supposedly have distinct identities. But attempt to follow one and you’ll more than likely end up on another; it’s far better to abandon the rudimentary maps, tackle path junctions on a whim and head in a broad general direction.
These unregimented turns lead to a million and one views that tour buses would deviate for miles to see if they could get down the tracks. The point comes when asking questions and trying to work things out seems a superfluous distraction to gibbering with glee and enjoying what’s on display.
Beyond the apricot trees and wild olives, the path leads to a cave door. Head poked round, the floor is a chalky white. But the eyes go up to meet columns and side chapels as proud and possessing as those to be found in any cathedral. A few tiny specks of paintings that once were remain, but it’s the simple purity of the Columned Church’s form that’s produces a magic spell to be greedily savoured.
There’s not another soul within the range of an echoing bellow. The mysteries of what came before these walls were carved, and what business has been conducted within them since, suddenly seem unimportant.
Time will continue to alter Cappadocia, shearing once arresting formations into dust and etching out new ones to replace them. But occasionally it freezes, casting a moment to get utterly lost in – a moment of total surrender to childlike wonder.
Travel Essentials
Getting there
There are no direct flights from the UK to Kayseri, the main entrance airport for Cappadocia. Turkish Airlines (T: 00 90 212 444 0849) offers connections via Istanbul from Heathrow, Gatwick, Birmingham and Edinburgh, while Pegasus Airlines (T: 0845 0848 980) does so from Stansted.
Getting around
Public transport is infrequent and doesn’t service many of the major tourist sites. Europcar at Kayseri Airport (T: 00 90 352 338 0044) is amongst a number of options for self-drivers.
Taxis are a decent option between towns, but organised tours – either joining a schedule outing or arranging one privately and negotiating a preferred schedule – can be an expedient way to fit in most of the key sites. Argeus (T: 00 90 384 341 4688) has well-trained guides and high service standards.
When to go
The summer months – especially July and August – can be very hot, and the winter months a little too chilly for such an outdoorsy region. May, September and October hit the sweet spot.
Need to know
Visas: Visas are available on arrival in Turkey, costing £10.
Currency: Turkish lira (TRY). £1 = 2.74 lira.
Health: It’s advisable to get vaccinated against Hepatitis A before visiting.
International dial code: 00 90
Time: GMT + 2
Places mentioned
Göreme Open Air Museum.
Derinkuyu Underground City.
Serinn House. T: 00 90 384 341 6076.
Turasan winery. T: 00 90 384 341 4961.
Şıra hotel. T. 00 90 384 219 3037.
Voyager Balloons. 00 90 532 717 5050.
More info
UK Turkish Culture and Tourism Office. T: 0207 839 7778. www.gototurkey.uk
The Lonely Planet Turkey guide costs £17.99 (RRP)
www.turkeytravelplanner.com
www.captivatingcappadocia.com
This article was first published in National Geographic Traveller (UK).