Cappadocia 2-Day Guided Trip from Istanbul by Plane with Transfers

Göreme Open Air Museum: the rock-cut churches of Cappadocia

The Göreme Open Air Museum is the centrepiece of any Cappadocia tour from Istanbul and the first big stop of this trip. It is a monastic complex cut into a cluster of tuff cones just outside Göreme, where monks between the 10th and 12th centuries hollowed out chapels, refectories and cells and painted them with scenes from the Bible. Your guide leads you from one church to the next (the Apple Church, the Snake Church, the Buckle Church and others), explaining the frescoes and the way the rock was worked.

Tickets are included and your group skips the ticket queue, which matters here in spring and autumn when coaches arrive together. Allow about an hour and a half inside; paths are stepped and uneven, so wear comfortable shoes. If you wonder whether the Göreme Open Air Museum is worth visiting, it holds the best-preserved painted churches in the region and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, so yes, it is the one stop nobody should miss.

Paşabağ, Devrent Valley and the pottery town of Avanos

After the museum the North Cappadocia route heads to Paşabağ, often called Monks Valley, where the fairy chimneys have the classic shape: tall columns of soft tuff capped by harder basalt 'hats', some of them with two or three caps on one stem. A small chapel is carved into one of the chimneys. Nearby Devrent Valley has no churches at all; it is a lunar landscape of pink rock eroded into shapes that visitors read as a camel, a seal or a dancing couple, and it is a favourite photo stop.

The day usually ends in Avanos on the Kızılırmak, Turkey's longest river, whose red clay has supplied potters since Hittite times. You visit a family workshop, watch a master throw a pot on a kick wheel and can try it yourself. Lunch on day one is at a local restaurant on the route, with the regional pottery kebab and other halal dishes typical of Cappadocia.

Uçhisar Castle and the Göreme and Rose Valley panoramas

Day two starts with the viewpoints that make Cappadocia famous. Uçhisar Castle is the highest point of the region, a huge rock pierced by rooms and tunnels that served as a fortress and lookout; from its foot you see the whole Göreme valley laid out below, and on calm mornings dozens of balloons still hanging in the air. A short drive brings you to the Göreme panorama, the classic terrace above the town.

The Red and Rose Valley panorama is the best place to understand the geology your guide has been describing: layers of volcanic ash in pink, red and cream, cut by erosion into ridges and ravines. The colours are strongest in the slanting light of early morning and late afternoon, which is why the best time to visit Cappadocia for photography is spring and autumn with their clear skies. Each viewpoint is a stop of 20 to 30 minutes.

Kaymaklı Underground City: a refuge beneath the plain

Kaymaklı Underground City is the widest of the underground settlements of Cappadocia and the one this trip visits on the guided South Cappadocia tour. Early Christian communities enlarged older Hittite-era tunnels into a multi-level town with stables, kitchens, storerooms, a church and ventilation shafts, sealed in times of danger with round millstone doors rolled across the passages. Four of the eight levels are open to visitors.

Your guide takes you down through the corridors, some of them low enough that you walk bent over, and explains how thousands of people could live underground for weeks. The visit lasts about 45 minutes and is cool year round, so bring a light layer in summer. Kaymaklı is not suitable for anyone who dislikes confined spaces, but for everyone else it is usually the stop that children and adults remember most from a Cappadocia tour.

Love Valley and Pigeon Valley walk

Between the underground city and lunch, the route passes Love Valley, whose tall, rounded fairy chimneys stand in rows along a green valley floor; you stop at the rim for photographs rather than hiking down. Pigeon Valley, between Göreme and Uçhisar, is named for the thousands of dovecotes carved into the cliffs, where farmers collected pigeon droppings as fertiliser for the vineyards and apricot orchards.

Here the guide leads a short, easy walk along the rim path through a maze of rock formations, with views back to Uçhisar Castle. Afterwards comes the second local lunch and a stop at a workshop where onyx, the banded local stone, is cut and polished in a quick demonstration. There is no obligation to buy anything. The tour then drives to Kayseri Airport for the flight back to Istanbul.

The cave hotel night and the optional balloon flight

You spend the night in a cave hotel in Cappadocia, a room cut into the soft rock in the traditional way, with modern bathrooms and heating; the small-group option books a standard room and the private option an upgraded one, subject to availability. Breakfast at the hotel is included, dinner is at your own expense and the hotel can recommend restaurants within walking distance.

The hot-air balloon flight at sunrise is the most requested extra in Cappadocia and is not included in the trip. After you book we can request a balloon ticket for you from the balloon company; prices vary by season and demand, and all flights depend on the Civil Aviation Authority's weather clearance that morning. If a booked flight is cancelled for weather you receive a full refund of the balloon ticket. Flights lift off before dawn and return in time for breakfast.