Today was like waking up for that all important meeting.You spend the night not sleeping for fear of missing the alarm then when you do finally drop off, wallop, 'that will be time to get up then'; it's 0430.But at least instead of a meeting we're off for what is the first ever hot air balloon ride for either of us.Maria managed to convince Caroline and Petra to give it a try and we bump into them waiting for the transport at 0530.Caroline has the caffeine DTs th...

A brief nap after our balloon ride was followed at 10 o'clock with a private tour to the Goreme Open-Air Museum, a coherent geographical site of cave dwellings and churches. There are eleven refectories within the Museum, with rock-cut churches tables and benches and each is associated with a church most of which belong to the 10th, 11th and 12th centuries.The Museum has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1984.Now, because the site is so interesting and un...

The day was beautifully sunny again and we set off from Goreme for the 90 minute drive to Ihlara with our American friends from the day before, Bob and Lynnea, and a good mix of experienced travellers.The guide today, Rosebud (Gonja in Turkish, and the only reason I remember her name is that it sounds like the dirty weed smoked by West Indians), demonstrated the hilarious guiding humour evident throughout Turkey by highlighting the cheapest 'hotel' in Cappadocia ...

The morning started sedately with a 0930 pick up from the hotel to take our intimate group of 9 for a botany, geography and history tour of the Rose Valley.Rose Valley is a large valley situated between Goreme and Cavusin villages, is divided into many smaller valleys, and gets its name from the rose-colored rock that varies in hue and intensity depending on time of day, season and weather conditions.It is famous for its amazing and unique landscape, cave dwellin...

The Deniz Atlanta hotel is the pits; the carpets are filthy; the layout is a joke; the services are suspect; the staff are incredibly lazy.We arrived at breakfast early to find no bread, no glasses and no staff as they were sat in their little staff room having a natter.The dining room looked like it had just been infested by a locust plague of biblical proportions all of which had detonated thermonuclear devices on the way through.And the staff were still sat in...