Cappadocia: Private Highlights Tour with Underground City & Pottery

4.98

(133 reviews)

What’s the experience like?

“Wait, is that a camel?” That’s how it started for me—squinting at a rock in Devrent Valley, half-convinced it was moving. Our guide, Eda, grinned and said locals call this place Imagination Valley for a reason. The air was dry but cool, and there was this faint smell of wild sage when the wind picked up. I kept getting distracted by shapes in the rocks—animals, faces, whatever your brain wants to see. We’d barely begun and I already felt like I was walking through someone else’s dream.

Kaymakli Underground City was next. I’m not sure what I expected—maybe something more polished? But it’s tight down there, low ceilings and rough stone under your hands. Eda told us people still use some tunnels for storage; her uncle keeps potatoes there (she laughed about how cold his hands get). It’s quiet underground except for our footsteps echoing back at us. At one point my backpack scraped the wall and sent little bits of dust floating in the flashlight beam. It made me think about all those centuries of people hiding or just living their lives down here.

Pigeon Valley looked almost gentle after that—a sweep of green dotted with old dovecotes carved into the cliffs. You can hear actual pigeons cooing if you stop talking long enough. We hiked a bit, shoes crunching on gravel, and Eda pointed out how farmers used pigeon droppings as fertilizer for vineyards. She waved her hand at Uchisar Castle up ahead (“That’s where you get the best view if you’re not afraid of stairs”). Lunch happened somewhere between places—I remember tomato salad with lemon juice so sharp it made my mouth water.

The Göreme Open-Air Museum felt different—somehow quieter even with other visitors around. Frescoes faded but still bright in patches; you could smell cool stone and something slightly sweet from the trees outside. In Avanos later, we watched a potter shape clay on a spinning wheel—my attempt came out lopsided but nobody seemed to mind (the potter just nodded and said “good first try,” which I’m pretty sure is Turkish for “please don’t quit your day job”). I still think about that view from Monks Valley as we drove back—the light changing everything gold for just a minute before dusk crept in.