Cappadocia: Land of Hobbits and Adventure!

Welcome to Cappadocia. A beyond belief area. Have you never heard about the place you have missed a great adventure. Before we visited Cappadocia, we only had a peripheral knowledge about the area, but to be honest we were totally flabbergasted when we saw the place. Cappadocia is truly an adventure to see and experience.

My wife and I went to Cappadocia during our summer vacation in Turkey in 2022. Since then, we haven’t really recovered. It was such a great and mind-blowing experience and we often talk about the visit when something reminds us of our visit. I’ll try to the best of my ability to describe the area and what you can expect when you visit Cappadocia.

First a little bit of history. Cappadocia is an ancient area located on the Anatolian high plains in Turkey. Millions of years ago volcanos erupted and lava from the mountains covered the area. The lava was exposed to flooding, rain and wind which eventually would create steep valleys and mountain fissures. Slopes turned into cones and pillars.

Even though the landscape looks barren it is in fact the opposite. Farmers have vineyards here producing quality wine and others grow other things amongst which are wonderful vegetables. Besides that, there are lots of different trees and bushes which make the area look green.

If you hike the trails of the area, you’ll be met by deep valleys surrounded by steep mountain faces. You’ll look at a completely unique nature with fantastic and surreal lava rock formations and sculptures created over the course of thousands of years. In fact, the rock formations look like something from Lord of the Rings. A pure fantasy landscape where you any minute expect to meet dwarfs, alfs and Hobbits.

Politically the area was in ancient times occupied by different surrounding states, but in the year 17 A.D. the Romans named the province Cappadocia. In these fairy tale surroundings, the first Christians created and designed rock churches and monasteries, formed close knit communities and underground villages because they were persecuted by other people with different religious convictions. The main reason that the first Christians remained in Cappadocia was consequently that the landscape was extremely difficult to conquer with its many odd shaped rocks.

Christianity remained the dominant religion in Cappadocia until Islam spread from the Arabian Peninsula during 700 A.D.

When you arrive as a tourist to the centrally located town Göreme in Cappadocia you are immediately surrounded by this fantasy and fairytale land. You’ll see the most fantastic rock formations which surround the small town. The rocks where the early Christians cut and dug out their residences and where there now are hotels and apartments with electricity and running water and where today literally thousands of people live.

Many hotels are built into the rocks and do you book a room at such a hotel you’ll get a room which is a totally different and exciting experience compared to an ordinary hotel room. You feel like you are a member of the Flintstones

There are numerous tourist attractions which you must visit. Some are free and at others you must pay a modest fee. Below I have shown our visits at some of the major sights.

When you visit Cappadocia though an absolute must is a hot air balloon ride. However, you must be prepared to get up at 3.30 AM if you want to enjoy this fantastic experience. We started our hot air balloon journey at 5.00 AM. We were a total of 28 passengers in the basket, so it was quite a big one. At the same time another 160 hot air balloons took off. It was a sight for sleepy eyes also because the sun got up over the mountains at the same time.

We flew for an hour across a great deal of the area up and down all the time depending on if we were in a valley, over the town or we should pass a mountain. An experience you’ll never forget.

Below you can see some of the photos that we took during our visit to Cappadocia. Please enjoy.