Up, Up & Away

Our morning got off to an early start with a wake-up knock at 4:30 AM. Getting up wasn’t too tough though as we were very excited for the day ahead of us. By five o’clock we were in a van with 6 other couples and headed for a morning of hot air ballooning over the valleys of Cappadocia. The weather was spectacular with clear blue skies… which was a great relief as the weather is supposed to be turning for the worst over the next couple of days making ballooning less enjoyable or not even possible.

By 7:00 AM we were weightless, floating high above the beautiful moonscape volcanic formations of the valley. Although our pictures below don’t do the scenery justice, take our word that the ride was quite amazing.

 Shortly after our basket safely touched ground, we were enjoying a glass of champagne to toast our Turkish flight. We made some good friends along the way and both enjoyed our first flights in a hot air balloon.

Our next stop of the day was the Goreme Open Air Museum. As the name implies, the museum is an outdoor, self guided tour of a cluster of caves that once made up an ancient community filled with housing quarters, dining halls, and numerous beautiful churches… all built into the volcanic rock formations. As you can see, the structures burrowed into the rock are quite elaborate and the craftsmen were extremely talented in hollowing out spaces that reflected vertical construction counterparts such as the beautiful basilicas of surrounding communities.

In addition to the impressive structural aspects of these cave dwellings, the frescoes painted upon them were also quite a sight. We found it amazing that not only had these caves stayed in tact for the past 1,000+ years, but the depictions of Christ, the apostles, and various biblical references have also been preserved through the years.

After our walk through the outdoor museum we headed back and took the rest of the day off from sight seeing. We laid out in the sun (and unfortunately got a little burned), planned future stages of our trip, laid out some more and mingled with some of our new friends.

Our evening was capped off with a nice restaurant at an authentic Goreme restaurant. We enjoyed two different variations of dinner pastries filled with potatoes and vegetables. The meal was enhanced by nice conversation with a newlywed couple from Colorado and entertainment from our goofy and quite friendly waiter