6. Cappadocia: Small-Group Guided Tour
The driver and the guide will pick you up from your hotel in the morning. Then you can decide with them what to visit. Cappadocia's most famous attraction, for good reason, is the Göreme Open Air Museum, a complex of medieval painted cave churches carved out by Orthodox monks. There are over 10 cave churches in the Göreme Open Air Museum. Along with rectories, dwellings, and a religious school, they form a large monastic complex carved out of a roughly ring-shaped rock formation in the otherworldly landscape of Cappadocia.
Old Cavusin, with its rock-cut dwellings and stone houses, had several hermitages. The two most important churches in Cavusin are the Great Basilica dedicated to St. John the Baptist and Cavusin Church or the 'Great Pigeon House'. The old city of Avanos, whose name in ancient times was Venessa, overlooks the longest river in Turkey, the Kızılırmak (Red River). The ceramic trade in this district and its countless pottery factories date back to the Hittites, and the ceramic clay from the red silt of the Kızılırmak has always been used locally. Watch the potters at work using the kick wheel, using a technique that has not changed for generations.
Pasabag, the remarkable earth pillars, can also be seen here, in the middle of a vineyard - hence the name of the place which means: the Pasha’s vineyard. Also known as Imaginary Valley or Pink Valley, this area does not have cave churches like the other valleys of Cappadocia. The small fairy chimneys in the valley form a lunar landscape, or moonscape, by their strange appearance. The valley has many animal-shaped rocks. Some of the most commonly seen shapes include camel, snake, seals, and dolphins.
Continue to the Underground City, the biggest and deepest underground settlement, which boasts eight levels connected by narrow tunnels.