Surrounded by epic sweeps of golden, moonscape valley, this remarkable touristic village hollowed out of the hills with the central “downtown” strip full of restaurants and travel agencies surrounded by boutique cave hotels. After we arrived in little Göreme, we walked to the viewpoint (🎫 5 TRY), and then we tried to find some nice place for dinner, but all restaurants were the same, so basically, it doesn’t matter where you take your dinner or breakfast. Also, beer usually costs the same 70 to 80 TRY. The next day we drove to Güvercinlik (Pigeon) Valley for some excellent views of fairy chimneys and pigeon houses. The next stop was the overcrowded Göreme Open-Air Museum (🎫 150 TRY, 🅿️ 40 TRY) – an all-in-one testament to Byzantine monastic life. Well, it was not our cup of tea; it’s better to visit more remote silent places (e.g., Soğanlı), where you will wander around similar or better rock-cut churches. The other two days, we used Göreme only overnight as our base to explore the fantastic Cappadocia region. We tried several times to get tickets for a famous hot-air balloon flight, but we were not lucky; some days, they were not operating due to weather conditions, or tickets were sold out, and prices varied from 180 EUR to 400 EUR.
GÖREME
PIGEON VALLEY
GÖREME OPEN-AIR MUSEUM
Parking location – Göreme: 38.645242N 34.827394E (🚻 – next to mosque)