GEOGRAPHY lessons at school were intensely boring and the teacher concluded it was not even worth entering me for an exam I was bound to fail. Not surprisingly, topics of a geographical kind have been off my radar ever since but this myopic perspective has been overcome, transformed utterly, by a trip to Cappadocia and its surreal landscape.
Like one of those Swiss cheeses riddled with holes, the rock formations of Cappadocia are randomly honeycombed with cavities of all shapes and sizes. Volcanic eruptions and underground earth movements have produced a soft rock that, exposed to wind and rain over millions of years, has been sculpted into eccentric forms that appeal to the imagination. Labelled fairy chimneys in the past, the term is apt for the stacked shapes and peculiar geological arrays that make up the landscape.
Balloon rides start at the crack of dawn whenever the weather allows for a safe ride
The visitor capital of Cappadocia is the town of Göreme but for tasteful accommodation and the most striking views the place to base yourself is nearby Uçhisar. It occupies high ground and is dominated by a huge outcrop of rock, called Uçhisar Castle, filled with hollowed-out rooms, cisterns, vaults and graves. Inhabited for thousands of years but deserted during the Ottoman period, the ‘castle’ is only the most conspicuous example of Cappadocia’s crazy-looking geography.
Taskonaklar Hotel offers splendiferous views from its terraces and if you can snag room 502 or 503 your open balcony looks across Pigeon Valley. Outdoor tables at the restaurant also command fine views while you consider whether or not to order testi, a dish from the region that is cooked gently for hours. From the hotel, steps lead down into the valley floor and a well-trod path that brings you to Göreme in 45 minutes; from there, taxis back to Uçhisar are readily available.
Uchisar Castle
Taskonaklar Hotel, landscaped to elegant perfection, has a character of its own and the Museum Hotel is also unique but in a very different style. It is the only Relais & Châteaux hotel in Turkey and earns its name from the collection of art works and antiques on display in every nook and cranny. Strolling white peacocks and Ottoman-style furnishings and fabrics add to an ambiance of times past, with the sense of luxury enhanced by figs and champagne for breakfast and a restaurant with tapestries on the wall and objets d’art in glass cabinets. The atmosphere for a candlelit dinner is subdued and intimate, with Ottoman-attired waiters serving the likes of a crunchy rocket salad with popped wheat and a mulberry dressing.
A dawn ride in a hot-air balloon is what every visitor to Cappadocia feels obliged to experience and some fifty of them can be seen floating about the skies when weather conditions are ideal. Each balloon basket holds up to nearly thirty passengers so you may end up joining members of a tour group but the aerial display around you is captivating.
A cave bedroom at Argos in Cappadocia Hotel
Back on ground level, Göreme Open Air Museum, is not really an open air museum and all the more interesting because of this. What you see and wander through, carved out of the rock by an early Christian community, is a cave complex of accommodation, refectories and churches. The earliest discernible images are simple crosses but later, with the end of Iconoclasm, frescoes were painted on the walls and ceilings. They are astonishingly well preserved and their artistic merit – as well as the heartfelt sincerity of those who painted them– shines forth across the intervening millennia.
Some of Uçhisar’s accommodation creatively utilises, or recreates, the troglodytic architecture that allowed churches and homes to be carved out of the rock. Ariana Luxury Sustainable Lodge has five bedrooms occupying original cave dwellings but if claustrophobia is a concern then request one of the modern rooms. Banish all thoughts of primitive accommodation and think Italian furniture, eye-catching mosaics in bathrooms, gazelle leather decorating a wall in the foyer and a smart restaurant with spectacular views.
The courtyard at Sakli
Argos in Cappadocia also offers super comfortable cave rooms as well as the country’s largest underground wine cellar, some 20,000 bottles suitably occupying an ancient winery site. Above ground the Seki restaurant enjoys a glorious outdoor location that looks straight across to Turkey’s Mt Fuji-lookalike, the volcanic and almost 4,000.m-high Mt Erciyes, and down on gardens of medlar trees and nasturtiums. Favourites on the menu include çeltik kebab (beef, yogurt and tomato sauce) and lamb chops with smoked eggplant.
If not staying in one of the stone-arched rooms at the boutique Sakli Konak hotel – delightfully affordable, visitor friendly and star breakfasts of gargantuan proportions– consider choosing its restaurant for a homely evening meal. What it lacks by way of magnificent views is more than made up by an amuse bouche, a feast of meze and a local speciality, resti, served from a pot that is broken at your table. Throw in a soundtrack of Amy Winehouse and Leonard Cohen and the ingredients are all there for a cosy dinner in an amiable setting.
A honeycomb of early Christian churches in Cappadocia
Turkey’s tourism has taken a body blow over the last year or so and visitor numbers have dropped considerably, the combined result of terrorist outrages and the country’s internal politics. Cappadocia is far less busy than usual, making a visit a more enticing prospect than ever before. A balloon is waiting for you and there is plenty on the ground to see and do.
by Sean Sheehan
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