Underground in Cappadocia

We woke this morning about 6am to the sound of the gas in the balloons. I raced outside nighty and all to see balloons rising up through the volcanic out crops~ what an amazing sight. To think that will be us tomorrow. 

Sadly one of those balloons crashed to the ground this morning with several injuries and 2 deaths. That should make our flights extra safe for tomorrow I'm hoping. After a delicious breakfast our guide arrived at 10am to show us the area. Once again it was just the 4 of us in this lovely van with a bar laid out in the back he even had a bottle of bubbles to go with it. Cappadocia is where all the ceramics come from as the clay they use is right here. So now we've learned that all the ceramics we saw in Istanbul came from here. Our guide says we are  meeting the real Turkish people now that we're away from Istanbul and how true that is. We visited the most beautiful small cave church with painted pictures on the rock walls & ceiling all done from natural dyes 1800 years old. Then took a walk around the fairy chimneys which are  outcrops of volcanic rock and on top of that lies a huge piece of basalt rock all formed over millions of years of volcanic activity. Then we went on to explore the Kaymakli underground city dating back to the Hittites period where people lived during times of unrest to protect themselves 1800 years ago. They even had an area for making wine. We went down 3 levels but there were several more levels that hadnt been opened up.We had a lovely lunch prepared by local ladies true home kitchen cooking. Then we headed off to taste a few local wines. After that the tour was over and we headed back to our cave suite. The day was completed by the usual drinks time then a bite to eat and off to bed ready for a 3.30am wake up call for our ballooning.

An evening scene in our room.