You will be picked up from your hotel in an air-conditioned mini-bus for your Cappadocia (Red Valley, Rose Valley, Cavusin, Pigeons’ Valley, Kaymakli) Tour. With your English-speaking guide you will travel through the extraordinary landscape of Cappadocia. See the spectacular landforms made from a soft volcanic rock known as tufa and sculpted into fantastic shapes by the forces of nature.
Your first stop, after a drive of about 15 minutes, is the spectacular Red Valley with its variegated rocks. You will enjoy a short walk (4km, 2.5 miles) through fabulous rock formations. On the way you will discover hidden cave churches with beautiful frescoes and paintings.
You will also visit lovely Rose Valley, a large area with cave dwellings and splendid rock-cut churches.
Your tour also includes Cavusin. Now abandoned, this was a Christian village and one of the oldest settlements in the area. The inhabitants lived in houses cut into a long rock wall. The main church here is dedicated to St John the Baptist and dates back to the 5th century AD. It is probably the oldest Christian building in Cappadocia.
Your next stop will be Pigeons’ Valley. You will soon see how the place got its name! Thousands of pigeon houses (dovecotes) are carved into the soft tufa and the valley must have one of the greatest collections of dovecotes in the world. In Cappadocia, pigeons have long been a source of food and fertilizer.
You will enjoy an open buffet lunch at Bindalli Restaurant at Uchisar near Pigeon’s Valley. This will include a wide range of delicious Turkish dishes, including vegetarian options.
After lunch, you will take another 15-minute drive to the 'underground city' of Kaymakli. Cappadocia has more than one hundred of these troglodyte complexes. They would have been dark, cramped and uncomfortable and were probably temporary shelters, used in times of war, rather than permanent dwellings. Notice how the walls have been blackened by torches.
At the end of a spectacular day's sightseeing you will be dropped back at your hotel.