Cappadocia Has Cave Motels, Scorching Air Balloons, and Beautiful Landscapes

Someday final yr, my 11-year-old son got here house from faculty and introduced that he had a bucket listing of journey locations. He started rattling them off—Chile’s Atacama Desert and China’s Guilin Mountains, Antelope Canyon in Arizona and Whitehaven Seaside in Australia—then requested to make use of my laptop. He opened up a browser and inside moments had pulled up a collection of landscapes: white cliffs, dazzling blue lakes, and arid deserts. The pictures had been so startling that they regarded otherworldly. 

I may perceive instantly why my son wished to go to those locations. It wasn’t something as cerebral as studying about one other tradition, or visiting historic websites, and it definitely wasn’t about meals or buying or museums—all standards that had beforehand come into play within the planning of our journeys. I don’t even suppose it was the need to be in nature, or to be in a lovely place. The landscapes he had chosen had been unearthly, portals to a different actuality. In these photos, the probabilities of the world widened—not solely what it regarded like, however the very guidelines by which it appeared to function. 

Among the many photos was a craggy mountain panorama, close to lunar in its aridity. Dozens of hot-air balloons floated overhead, in a sky vivid with shade. I may see why he had chosen it. It regarded like one thing out of Jules Verne, or probably Star Wars. “The place is that?” I requested him. “Cappadocia, in central Turkey,” he replied. 

Of the locations he had proven me, that was the one which caught, and a few months later, after we started planning a household journey, I proposed Turkey. At the same time as strategies flowed in—my husband has visited Istanbul a number of occasions, a buddy advisable a “Blue Voyage” cruise alongside the Turkish Riviera—I remained fixated on Cappadocia. I wished, as a lot as my son, to be in that panorama. 

We weren’t the one ones. In recent times, tourism has reworked Cappadocia. The area has lengthy been well-known not just for these picturesque hot-air balloons but additionally for its millennia-old cave dwellings. Now, alongside these sights, there are luxurious resorts, spas, and eating places (a few of which occupy these caves).

Retaining in thoughts the pursuits of our son and eight-year-old daughter, my husband and I created an itinerary with the assistance of a member of T+L’s A-Listing, Engin Kadaster of Turkey at Its Greatest, a luxurious journey firm. We might begin with a number of days in Istanbul, earlier than transferring on to Cappadocia, and finish with a few days in İzmir, on the Aegean Coast, our base whereas we visited the ruins of Ephesus and Pergamon. The journey would cross between the up to date and the traditional, metropolis and nation, in a bit of greater than per week. 

We arrived in Istanbul just a bit bleary-eyed from the in a single day flight and had been quickly ushered into the cocoon-like serenity of the 4 Seasons Resort Istanbul on the Bosphorus. The property was located on the banks of the strait, the waterway seen from our spacious room. Istanbul is famously the assembly place between Europe and Asia—however as I quickly realized, it’s one factor to know that intellectually and one other to expertise it. When we sat on the window seat and gazed throughout the water, we had been wanting from one continent to a different. That geographic actuality appeared nearly as fantastical because the landscapes my son had proven me.

With solely a handful of days in Istanbul, we wished to do the best hits—the Topkapı Palace Museum, the Sultan Ahmed Mosque (sometimes called the Blue Mosque), Hagia Sophia. Fortunately, these sights are all inside a stone’s throw of each other, and we had been in a position to go to all of them, in addition to the Grand Bazaar and the underground Basilica Cistern. As a result of we had been visiting in November, they had been quiet, with none lengthy strains.

Hagia Sophia was the place I started to know that the suitable spatial metaphor for the town—and certainly the nation—was much less a gathering level between two cultures and extra a historic palimpsest. The construction’s numerous makes use of mirror the historical past of Turkey, marked by the rise and fall of empires. Initially constructed as a church within the sixth century, Hagia Sophia was transformed right into a mosque in 1453, after the autumn of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire. Greater than a decade after the founding of the secular Republic of Turkey in 1923, Atatürk, its first president, decreed Hagia Sophia would turn into a museum. In 2020, the present president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, transformed Hagia Sophia again right into a mosque, with the higher stage open to non-Muslims. Our information identified a mosaic with 4 huge seraphim, created throughout Hagia Sophia’s unique life as a church. When the constructing was changed into a mosque, the faces of the seraphim had been lined by gold stars; when the mosque turned a museum, one of many stars was eliminated and a single seraphim face revealed. 

After fortifying ourselves with a easy lunch-counter meal of kebabs, soup, and an unreasonably scrumptious platter of rice and beans, we headed within the route of the Basilica Cistern. The biggest of Istanbul’s system of underground cisterns, which offered water to the town for a whole bunch of years, was constructed within the sixth century by Byzantine emperor Justinian I. Right this moment, the cavernous house has walkways put in above the skinny layer of water that covers the ground. We examined the a whole bunch of columns, many salvaged from Roman ruins and marked with extravagant carvings in a startling array of types. (Most startling of all? The clean stares of two large Medusa heads haphazardly repurposed as column bases, one resting the wrong way up and the opposite sideways.) It was one other architectural marvel, outlined by layers of time.

We carried the teachings of Hagia Sophia—of the layers of historical past, and the friction created the place they meet—with us as we reluctantly packed our luggage for Cappadocia. We flew in to the town of Kayseri, and if the barren panorama across the airport wasn’t instantly inspiring, it reworked round us as we drove towards Cappadocia: dramatic gorges and valleys appeared; rock formations jutted up towards the sky. 

The spectacular panorama is the impact of abrasion on the totally different layers of rock. Tuff, which is smooth and porous and shaped out of volcanic ash, is topped by basalt, which is tougher and fewer permeable. The tuff offers strategy to erosion extra shortly, the basalt extra slowly—and the juxtaposition of the 2 creates an otherworldly panorama of spindly towers topped by mushroom-shaped caps. The softness of the tuff made it potential for early inhabitants of the area to carve whole settlements, or cave cities, into and beneath the rock faces.

Right this moment guests can keep at a cave lodge, the newest use of those millennia-old dwellings. Cappadocia is crammed with such resorts, some rudimentary and others downright luxurious. We arrived on the Taşkonaklar Resort Cappadocia, within the tiny city of Uçhisar, on the sting of Göreme Nationwide Park, and had been greeted with tea, cookies, and a clowder of pleasant cats. We had been proven to our suite, which had been carved into rock and confronted a spectacular gorge. 

The second they noticed the room, our children begged for a “chill out day,” i.e., a day with out museums or historic websites. We relented, partially as a result of the lodge itself felt like an attraction—and in addition as a result of, as soon as the youngsters found the recent tub on the balcony, it was clear we wouldn’t be leaving anytime quickly. As an alternative, we spent the afternoon soaking within the heat water and staring out on the ridges of Cappadocia.

The subsequent morning, we rose earlier than daybreak to take a dawn hot-air balloon journey—the photogenic journey that had prompted our journey. Fortified by cups of sturdy espresso, we piled in to an SUV and drove out into the panorama to the place our balloon was ready. I had by no means been in or close to a hot-air balloon earlier than, so I used to be startled by how massive it was, how dramatic the method of slowly inflating the balloon was. 

By the point we clambered into the basket—which, to my reduction, was chest-high on me and got here as much as the youngsters’ chins—adrenaline was coursing by us. Because the solar inched up over the horizon, releasing bands of shade throughout the sky, we had been slowly lifted off the bottom after which drifted up some 1000’s of toes. I used to be struck by how silent it was. There was no wind, no fowl or animal sound. A hush fell upon us, punctuated solely by occasional blasts from the burner, as we had been piloted over the ghostly panorama after which gently again to floor.

We may don’t know that this journey can be solely the second or third most spectacular occasion of the day. We had simply sufficient time on the lodge to have breakfast—a scrumptious unfold of greens, cheeses, breads and pastries, with eggs cooked to order, plus thick slices of cake that the youngsters surreptitiously wrapped of their napkins “for later”—earlier than we had been picked up and brought to Kaymaklı, among the best preserved underground cities in Cappadocia. 

“Underground metropolis” fails to speak the size or wonderment of Kaymaklı, a feat of engineering that dates again to the late Bronze Age and was enlarged between the eighth and seventh centuries B.C. by the Phrygians, one of many main Iron Age civilizations. The complicated grew some eight tales deep, a warren of rooms constructed with extraordinary sophistication, outfitted with air flow, kitchen and sleeping quarters, even areas for crushing grapes and making wine. 

Very similar to Hagia Sophia, Kaymaklı bodily demonstrates the layers of historical past by the tales of its inhabitants. Like many cave settlements, it was used as a protected haven, a spot to cover from hostile forces. As we walked by the caves, down slender pathways and thru dozens of rooms, we had been proven massive storage areas for meals, stables for livestock, and a boulder that could possibly be rolled into place to safe an entryway. After the Phrygians, it was occupied by early Christians throughout the Arab-Byzantine wars, once more throughout the Mongolian incursions of the 14th century, after which once more throughout the Ottoman Empire. 

The legacy of these Christian inhabitants is much more in proof in close by Göreme Nationwide Park, whose spectacular monasteries and church buildings are carved into the rock and adorned with dazzling Byzantine frescoes. We visited Göreme the next day, the kids this time marveling on the footholds resulting in entryways excessive up on the rock face and the lengthy tables and benches carved out of stone. The valley is crowded with tiny church buildings, many that includes frescoes from the eighth century. The partitions are festooned with vivid purple crosses that sit alongside later, middle-Byzantine frescoes of mesmerizing representational and technical talent.

That afternoon, we moved to Argos in Cappadocia, one other cave lodge a stone’s throw from the Taşkonaklar. With its elegant, minimalist aesthetic, the Argos meets each potential normal for luxurious, whereas remaining totally distinct: along with the anticipated facilities (two glorious eating places, an in depth wine cellar, and a top-notch gymnasium), the property has an underground tunnel and a cave chapel. In among the rooms, the partitions nonetheless have marks from the place the caves had been carved out by hand.

The Argos additionally has a spa the place my daughter and I made a decision to heat up with a conventional Turkish hammam whereas my son and husband scrambled as much as the highest of Uçhisar Citadel. If the snow made their trek just a bit perilous for them, it made our spa expertise all of the cozier. We had been totally scrubbed, and copious quantities of scorching water had been flung over and round us, after which we drank inexperienced juices and stared out on the snowcapped valley. After we gathered for dinner, we had been all exhilarated, if for various causes. 

We had solely a pair extra days in Turkey, and these had been allotted to 2 historic websites within the west of the nation. The youngsters had been reluctant to go away Cappadocia, irrespective of what number of occasions we tried to influence them that it will be thrilling to go to Pergamon, the place parchment was reportedly invented. They had been extra enchanted by the thought of visiting the town’s Asklepion Sanctuary, the traditional Roman therapeutic middle with plunge swimming pools of cold and warm water, mud baths, and a devoted house for dream interpretation. As we learn descriptions of the therapies, a complete lifestyle and perception system was made seen to us—one which, with its nearly New Age sensibility and drama (there was even a theater for the leisure of the sufferers) felt remarkably accessible.

We had been thus primed for Ephesus, in all its staggering magnificence. One of many greatest preserved historic cities, its evocation of Greek and Roman life is startlingly instant—from the grand public areas to the extra intimate (however frankly nonetheless grand) terrace homes that belonged to rich Roman households. They had been stuffed with opulent mosaics and frescoes. The youngsters giggled over the general public bogs, ignoring our lectures in regards to the wonders of Roman engineering, chased after the various stray cats patrolling the ruins, and remained in excessive spirits even because it started to rain, at which level we made our strategy to the Library of Celsus, with its awe-inducing façade and statues.

As our journey got here to its finish, I requested the youngsters what their favourite issues from Turkey had been. My daughter mentioned the cats, and the breakfast on the Taşkonaklar, and the view onto the Bosporus from the lodge in Istanbul, and in addition the underground metropolis. My son started his personal listing: Ephesus and Kaymaklı for positive, and the underground cistern in Istanbul. The Taşkonaklar breakfast needed to be on there, too, and the stroll by the Göreme Valley, and the huge quantities of pide, the stuffed bread we had eaten nearly in every single place.

As they added ever extra gadgets to their lists, it occurred to me that that they had but to the point out the balloon journey in Cappadocia, the topic of the picture that had captivated us a lot that we made the choice to journey to Turkey. Maybe it wasn’t stunning that actuality had surpassed a single picture on a display, nevertheless vivid, nevertheless it remained one thing of a consolation—that journey nonetheless can change our understanding of what we all know, and what we’re on the lookout for within the first place. 

A model of this story first appeared within the December 2025/January 2026 problem of Journey + Leisure underneath the headline “Up and Away.”