We left Gaziantep early so we could get up to Nemrut Dagi (Mount Nimrod) today. This involved a taxi ride to the bus station, quickly on to a minibus (no time even to grab breakfast), change minibuses after 2 ½ hours for another 40 minute ride to Khata (where we were staying). We checked in to our hotel and organised another minibus to take us on a tour to the mountain. Everybody was starving at this point, so it was into the kebab shop for lunch. The tour t...

We had a 6:30 start to see the balloons take off in the valley - we climbed to the view point and had one last look at the fabulous scenery. We left Goreme with a heavy heart; we have had a great time here. Our 1st stop was Kayseri where we changed buses. We were expecting a long wait here but our initial bus arrived early so we bought tickets and we were off again in 10 minutes. The trip to Gaziantep was 6 hours from Kayseri and it took us past some sp...

As we had had some 'full-on' days we decided to take it a little easier today. We had no alarms and a leisurely walk to take the bus to Urgup - a small town 5km away. As we were early for the bus we idled away our waiting time trying Turkish delight and dried fruit. Urgup was supposed to be more up-market than where we are staying but to us it just seemed more modern and busier. We had a stroll up to the high-point of the town for the view and then went for ...

Today we hired a car in order to see some of the outlying sites. Our plan was to walk the Ihlara gorge. This is a 14km long gorge with a river running through it - again with churches hollowed out of the cliffs. We drove to Ihlara village (about 100km), the start of the gorge. We set off to find the gorge entrance - after a few wrong turns we found our way to it. The gorge is 100m deep and varies in width from a few hundred metres up to a kilometre. The ...

Today was Judi's 21st birthday so we had booked a balloon flight (mine was for my birthday next week). The flight started at dawn, so we were up at 4:30 am for a transfer to the balloon company's office. This was a restaurant 5 miles away where we all had breakfast (Ken moaning he could have had another hour in bed). Suddenly we were all off, piled into a minibus and drove back towards our hotel and then into a field where the balloon was being inflated. W...