Plan Göreme: Be Amazed by the Gigantic Pillar Groups!

Thinking back, our journey of going to Izmir and then Cappadocia from Istanbul is quite intense: we first woke up at 6:30 in Istanbul; took a 3 hr train to Eskişehir; explored and waited there for 12 hours; took a 13hr train to Izmir (supposed to be 12 hours); headed to the airport to pick up the car (by the time we got the car, it’s already 4pm); stuck in finding a parking lot for a while; drove 5 hours to and from Pamukkale the next day; headed to the airport after exploring; arrived at Cappadocia at 10pm; took a 1 hr Uber from the airport to the ballon town Göreme.

Thank god the hot ballon tour got canceled so we could be more chill and explore the cute town Göreme the next day.

Table of Contents

• Istanbul Day 3 Itinerary

  • Actual Route Diagram

• Tips for Logistic

• My experience

  • 1. Göreme Open Air Museum Cultural Route

  • 2. Sunset/Sunrise/Balloons Highest View point in G …

  • 3. Restoran Malaysia

  • 4. Göreme Künefecis (Dessert place)

Istanbul Day 3 Itinerary

1. Göreme Open Air Museum Cultural Route

2. Sunset/Sunrise/Balloons Highest View point in Göreme

3. Restoran Malaysia

4. Göreme Künefecis (Dessert place)

Actual Route Diagram

Tips for Logistic

1. When you go on a hike in Göreme Open Air Museum Cultural Route, you can find a restroom around here that cost 10 Lira.

2. For visiting Sunset/Sunrise/Balloons Highest View point in Göreme, it costs 30 lira. Behind the ticket office, there are actually some hotels in the area. I wonder if people staying in those hotels need to pay for such entrance fee. 🤔

3. About buying water, you can buy 1.5 L water in A101 supermarket here, which is 10 lira cheaper than other stores! (the standard price is usually 20)

My experience

1. Göreme Open Air Museum Cultural Route

The next day after arriving in Göreme, we started to walk around and explored the area. We didn’t have a concrete plan but basically followed the volcanic and erosion activity shaped pillars we saw, and found this hiking route.

I Recommend to stop at ballon view point here where there’s a retro “Welcome to Göreme“ board (not the modern kind - “I love Goreme”) to take a photo. Keep walking you will reach to a lookout point, that’s the spot where you see pillars extending miles and miles. The scale reminds me Grand Canyon. The pointed pillar groups make the scene so unreal that I can’t believe such place exists. I really like this kind of rugged beauty!

2. Sunset/Sunrise/Balloons Highest View point in Göreme

The Cultural Route allows you to appreciate the beauty of the geography with “zoom out” mode; the Sunset Highest View Point, on the other hand, equips you with “zoom-in” lenses - you are able to get much closer to the pillars! I was at the View Point and realized how big those pillars are, it made me in awe.

The most surprising part there was seeing the light transformed into different colors in different directions. In the East, it’s light orange reflected on the stones and later it became light purple; it the West, it’s golden orange at the beginning and then turned to deep pink. When the color of the light all faded away, it’s another world lit by honey yellow street bulbs. That really made me feel like in a fairy tale.

3. Restoran Malaysia

I recommend this restaurant not only because I have Asian appetite but also because they have great balcony dining area that is good for taking photos ha 😄 An anecdote here - when we checked out at the counter, we noticed there’s an announcement, saying the Tea Amo Sirkeci restaurant in Istanbul is their sister restaurant! “We’ve been there!” I said. That’s how we started a conversation with the staff.

4. Göreme Künefecis (Dessert place)

I used my Baklava eyes to spot this place. Their baklava and other dessert (Turkish delight) are good in terms of taste and price! Initially we wanted to find a new place to get some dessert, but we decided to go back to this place (yeah, we went there 2 times!) because similar dessert sold in other stores in town are much more expansive and a lot more touristy.

Note that on google map, the location of the store sill shows “Ottoman Patisserie & Coffee” even though we submitted update to Google. But the store is there! I’ll add the front appearance of the store below so you can recognize when you visit!