Romantic in Cappadocia

Romance in Cappadocia rests on two hours of the day — dawn and dusk — and almost the whole programme is tied to them. At dawn the balloons rise: the flight over the valleys lasts about an hour, and those not flying can buy a separate trip to a viewpoint where a Turkish breakfast table is set right at the edge of the cliff while the envelopes open one after another in the sky.

Sunset brings a different set. A horse ride through the valleys runs about two hours and ends as the tuff begins to give off pink; quads and jeeps cover the same valleys faster and louder. The evening closes with a Turkish night in a cave hall and a folk programme — the vaults and the acoustics there came from the rock rather than from an architect.

A genre of its own is the photo shoot. Photography in Cappadocia has become a service in itself: with a flying dress against the valleys, with balloons at sunrise, with a prepared marriage proposal. Practical notes: the plateau lies above a thousand metres, and at dawn it is around ten degrees even in July — a warm jacket is needed over any outfit. Dawn flights and shoots are cancelled on wind, so a spare day is not wasted.