Cappadocia is a beautiful region in central Turkey famous for its fairytale scenery, cave dwellings, remarkable rock formations, and of course, the hundreds of hot air balloons that soar in the sky during sunrise each morning. The word Cappadocia in Persian means ‘Land of Beautiful Horses’, which just like leads to people daydreaming of wild horses running through the beautiful Cappadocia landscape at sunset.
The word Cappadocia means ‘Land of Beautiful Horses’
The density of its rock-hewn cells, churches, troglodyte villages, and subterranean cities within the rock formations make it one of the world’s most striking and largest cave-dwelling complexes
Located on the central Anatolia plateau within a volcanic landscape sculpted by erosion to form a succession of mountain ridges, valleys, and pinnacles known as “fairy chimneys” or hoodoos, Göreme National Park and the Rock Sites of Cappadocia cover the region between the cities of Nevşehir, Ürgüp, and Avanos. The area is bounded on the south and east by ranges of extinct volcanoes with Erciyes Dağ (3916 m) at one end and Hasan Dağ (3253 m) at the other. The density of its rock-hewn cells, churches, troglodyte villages, and subterranean cities within the rock formations make it one of the world’s most striking and largest cave-dwelling complexes. Though interesting from a geological and ethnological point of view, the incomparable beauty of the decor of the Christian sanctuaries makes Cappadocia one of the leading examples of the post-iconoclastic Byzantine art period.
Cappadocia is a place you have to see to believe
Seemingly plucked from a fairytale, the region has, in recent years, become something of an Instagram legend. With fairy chimneys, underground towns, the Göreme Open-Air Museum, cave hotels, and a sky that becomes dotted with hot-air balloons at sunset, there’s something ethereal about life in this pretty part of Turkey.
