Cappadocia: A Place That Doesn't Feel Real

Places

Aug 4

After Istanbul, we flew to Cappadocia, and almost immediately it felt like we had landed somewhere completely different.

Rolling green hills met enormous rock formations, caves and valleys stretching farther than I could see. It felt magical, surreal and a little like another planet.

Staying at Moonstone Cappadocia

When planning Cappadocia, one of the first decisions was where to stay. Cave hotels are part of what the region is known for, but I honestly wasn't sure how I would feel sleeping inside one or whether I'd end up feeling claustrophobic.

So we chose Moonstone Cappadocia instead, and it ended up being perfect.

It was close enough that we could walk into Uçhisar, but far enough outside of town that we could look back and see the town and Uçhisar Castle rising above it.

The property itself was beautiful. The owners had purchased the land and restored it using original stone from the property, creating something that still felt deeply connected to Cappadocia.

The architecture was one of my favorite parts. From the structure and décor to the carved pillars and details throughout the rooms, everything felt intentional. We stayed in a room with a jetted hot tub, which definitely didn't hurt either.

Meals were served on the rooftop terrace overlooking Uçhisar, giving us the perfect place to sit, eat and take in the landscape.

It gave me exactly what I wanted: the stone, architecture and character Cappadocia is known for, without actually having to sleep inside a cave.

Uçhisar: Where Cappadocia Started to Feel Unreal

From Moonstone, we could walk into Uçhisar, where we ate, wandered through the markets and eventually made our way toward the rock formations and Uçhisar Castle.

And that's where Cappadocia completely stopped looking real to me.

I remember looking out and thinking it looked like Mars.

I was honestly speechless.

We walked down the hillside and into the fields, surrounded by rolling green land interrupted by enormous towers of rock. Everywhere we looked, there were openings carved into the stone, some once used as homes and spaces where people actually lived.

Green hills and open fields surrounded these almost otherworldly formations. The geography alone left me amazed by what nature and time had created here.

From Uçhisar to Ortahisar

On another day, we set out to see more of Cappadocia beyond Uçhisar.

The places we wanted to visit were much farther apart, so we took a taxi toward Ortahisar. Our driver ended up being incredibly kind and took us between some of the viewpoints we wanted to see.

One of our stops was outside Lavanta Panorama Café, where we grabbed a coffee and took in the panoramic views of Ortahisar.

From above, we could see the town surrounded by Cappadocia's incredible geography, with Ortahisar Castle rising dramatically from the landscape.

Through the Valleys

The valleys were what really made me understand how wild the geography of Cappadocia is.

There was so much land and so much wilderness. Valleys stretched between enormous formations, with trails disappearing into places you couldn't see from where you stood.

Watching the light and shadows move through the landscape made me think about the phrase from the Bible, “the valley of the shadow of death.”

I had heard those words so many times, but seeing a massive valley transition from bright sunlight into shadow made me understand the imagery differently.

It wasn't frightening. It made me marvel even more at nature, the earth and creation.

Seeing Cappadocia From the Bottom

Then we traded the viewpoints for ATVs.

Riding through the valleys gave us an entirely different perspective. Instead of standing above looking down, we were suddenly at the bottom, surrounded by the formations we had been admiring from above.

We rode through dusty trails, between towering rocks and across the open landscape. We even made friends along the way, which made an already fun experience even better.

It was adventurous, dusty and one of the coolest ways we experienced Cappadocia.

Sunset Over Red Valley

Our driver also took us to Red Valley for sunset, and this may have been one of my favorite moments.

There's a reason it's called Red Valley.

As the sun began to go down, the landscape transformed with the light and the rocks took on deeper shades of red.

At the top, families and groups of friends had gathered with chairs, tea and snacks just to enjoy the view and wait for sunset. We started chatting with a group that was sitting admiring the sunset when all of a sudden they offered us their home made sandwiches. They were scrumptious!

We sat high above the valley watching the colors change until the sun finally disappeared.

There was something beautiful about seeing everyone gather just to watch nature do what it does every single evening.

A Different Kind of Hot Air Balloon Ride

Cappadocia is famous around the world for its hot air balloons, with hundreds sometimes filling the sky around Göreme and Uçhisar. People travel from all over the world for that experience, and seeing that many balloons floating together is incredible.

But for our ride, I wanted something a little different.

We traveled to Selime, where our flight began down inside a valley with a small river running through it. We lifted off from there and slowly started rising above the landscape.

And this completely blew my mind.

We had spent days walking around Cappadocia feeling like we were standing on the ground, looking across valleys and exploring the world around us. But as the balloon rose higher and higher out of this valley, we suddenly reached what almost felt like another floor of the earth.

There were towns, roads and people living their everyday lives above the valley we had just floated out of.

It sounds so simple, but seeing it from the air completely changed my understanding of the geography. What we thought of as the “ground” was really just one level of this enormous landscape.

We continued floating toward a neighboring town, surrounded by open land and snow-capped mountains in the distance, before eventually coming down there.

Same planet. Same landscape. People living their lives at completely different elevations, and for a little while, we got to float between them.

A Place That Left Me Speechless

That's probably the best way I can describe Cappadocia.

It left me speechless.

We saw it from the tops of hills and the bottoms of valleys. We wandered through its towns, rode ATVs through the dust, watched the rocks turn red with the sunset and eventually floated above it all.

But more than any individual activity, it was the land itself that stayed with me.

The scale of it. The formations. The valleys. The homes carved into rock. The way sunlight could completely transform the landscape.

There are places that look beautiful in pictures, and then there are places where pictures can't quite explain what it feels like to stand there.

For me, Cappadocia was one of those places.

See our Cappadocia experience on Instagram →