Thursday 24 September
I didn’t realise the best day in turkey was about to happen! We began in a cave restaurant for apple tea.

This morning was an early start again for an amazing experience in Cappadocia … Hot air ballooning. Watching the balloons being blown up was exciting with about one hundred balloons eventually ending up in the air.

There were different sizes with baskets to take different numbers of passengers. Our basket had the main central section for the operator and two sections on each side, we had 4 people in our section.

It was an incredible experience… Exhilorating , beautiful, serene and thrilling all at once. The landscape has been forged as a result of 3 volcanoes in the area which erupted and the resultant laval rock has been attacked by water and wind over time. The surreal landscape of fairy chimneys has resulted providing an amazing backdrop to the hot air ballooning. It is also incredible to see the baskets being landed into the trailers directly and then the deflation of the balloon. The experience lasted for around one hour in the air. When it came to land it looked as though we would land on a steep incline but the faithful team made sure we landed on the flat surfaced trailer. Our team then provided us all with medals and champagne to celebrate.

Wednesday 23 September
An early departure from Istanbul to the airport for a flight to Kayseri in Cappadocia, central Turkey.

After lunch of meze platter and apple tea, we visited the Goreme open air museum.

The landscape is amazing with natural rock formations which have been produced by weather effects over many many years and where we visited at least three Christian churches which were carved into the soft rock and painted with frescoes including St Barbara church, Apple church and Snake church. We could have spent all day exploring there and it is a must-see with so much history attached amidst the landscape which could be on another planet or on the moon.

In the afternoon we visited a government run carpet weaving centre. From past experience, I realise that having group in such a place is a distinct advantage to avoid any hard selling.

By chance it was an important religious ceremony called Eid.Bayram which we were told relates to a bible story of Abraham choosing to sacrifice his son and today animals are sacrificed, although we didn’t see any sacrifices. It was very busy with Turkish holiday makers.

Unfortunately it meant we needed to change hotel and we missed out on staying in a cave room hotel. We stayed out of Urgup at a new hotel called the Hill hotel. It was still experiencing some plumbing problems but the staff were very friendly (so that made up for the plumbing), the room was big and comfortable and they put on a big banquet for the group that night.

Tuesday 22 September
Today we got a public ferry on the Bosphorus to the end of the line near the Black Sea which took about 1 hour.

From the ferry there was a view of the restaurant under the bridge where we had lunch the day before, along with all the keen fishermen with their lines hanging over the bridge into the Bosphorus. It was a beautiful day to be cruising on the Bosphorus with views to the east and west as we crisscrossed to each ferry terminal. Lunch again, there was a choice of sardines, sea bass and gilt head bream. I chose gilt head which was delicious. Desert generally does not interest me but we had a desert ?? kana feh (not sure if this is correct but check the photo) which tasted of sesame seeds and was like a baked custard. At the top of the hill was the ruins of a Byzantine castle (Yaros Kalesi) with a view to the Black Sea and near the fishing village of Anadolu Kavağı.
Dinner was in the rooftop restaurant in the hotel next door and we had a vegetarian Turkish meal. Afterwards we lounged on the big cushions in the outside smoking area with a beautiful view across Istanbul and the Bosphorus, chatting to guides Genghis and Erica.