It was a long all day drive from Pamukkale to the Cappadocia region in central Turkey and the town of Goreme. This is where the main attraction is the strange rock formations shaped like fairy castles and into which the locals hollowed out caves to live in (and were still doing so well into 1980s).  All a bit hard to describe but quite amazing landscape. Early Christians also hollowed out small churches many of which remain. The walls and ceilings are decorated with frescos showing various bible stories and events, some of these date to the 11 century and retain much of their colour.

Fairy Chimneys at Goreme in Cappadocia, drifted over these in the balloon.

We had also been starved of factory tours for a few days and made up for this by visiting a ceramics business and also a jeweler, who said he had the finest turquoise items available. Some pretty impressive ceramic pieces. Enough said about this adventure.

Firing up the balloon

In the early hours of the morning, 4am to be precise,  we were awoken for a hot air balloon flight over the formations. We were aloft a little before 6am and caught the sunrise. There were 50 or 60 balloons in the air at the time. We were one of the first off the ground and  saw many of  the others follow us up. Leanne stayed firmly on the ground and followed in the pick up truck. We were aloft for a bit over an hour. Great experience.

Allthego aloft over Cappadocia

Sunrise over Cappadocia

We now head for Ankara and Istanbul.