Day 10 of Turkey Vacation: Hiking in Göreme Valleys on August 28th, 2016

Last day in the beautiful Cappadocia region.

I had been thinking quite hard about what to do for the day, and I was seriously planning for Lake Tuz. But out hotel manager told us that there wasn’t much water in the salt lake in this season, and usually people put Lake Tuz tour along with the Green Tour in one day (and it would be quite a long day then).

I finally decided on trekking the valleys of the Cappadocia region. I saw online and heard from our tour guides that many of the valleys in Cappadocia can actually be walked, and I was particularly interested in the Pigeon Valley from Göreme to Uchisar.
After some more research, I settled on one day’s hiking from Göreme, through Pigeon Valley to Uchisar, visit its historic castle (that’s often seen in the previous two day’s tours), and then walk North along Love Valley, and then walk back through an ATV trail on some nameless plateau back to Göreme.

But before that, I decided to wake up early and watch the sunrise, while the sky’s decorated with colorful air balloons.

Balloons Preparing to Take Flight

Balloons Preparing to Take Flight

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Flight Log of Turkish Airlines Flight 2009 from Nevşehir to Istanbul Ataturk on August 28th, 2016

Time to head back to Istanbul from Cappadocia.

The Cappadocia region has two airports, Nevsehir and Kayseri; also, Istanbul has two airports, Ataturk and Gokcen. Since we planned three full days at Cappadocia, we would be arriving at night, which meant we preferred the Ataturk Airport with its metro access much more than the distant Gokcen airport on the other side of the channel. Although Nevsehir Airport was closer to Goreme than Kayseri, it doesn’t make too much a difference, as both airports require shuttle services at similar prices. After that, our only choice seemed to be the three times daily service of Turkish Airlines to/from Nevsehir Airport.
I had to say, since both ends of our flight were at the better airports, plus Turkish Airlines was not the big-sale-onboard budget carriers, the price of our ticket did seemed a little bit high compared with our other transportations in Turkey.

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Day 6 of Turkey Vacation: Antalya on August 24th, 2016

The plan of the day was the historic old city of Antalya. Also, since Expo 2016 was going on in Antalya (and the city built a new tramway for it), we decided to pay it a visit.

The first stop of the day was Old Roman Harbor of Antalya. Once an economic lifeline to the city, now the old Roman Harbor mainly served tourism boats, while the actual port of Antalya had been relocated out of city.

Overlooking Old Roman Harbor of Antalya

Overlooking Old Roman Harbor of Antalya


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Day 5 of Turkey Vacation: Bus from Kaş to Antalya on August 23rd, 2016

The plan of the day was simple, took a bus ride from Kas to Antalya through Turkey’s beautiful coastal route of D400, and got settled in the Antalya hotel room.

Greek Island of Kastellorizo

Greek Island of Kastellorizo


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Day 4 of Turkey Vacation: Kekova Islands from Kaş on August 22nd, 2016

The most worry-free day since we arrived in Turkey, as everything would be arranged for us on the 8-hour boat trip to Kekova.

Streets of Kaş

Streets of Kaş


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Day 3 of Turkey Vacation: Ölüdeniz, and Bus to Kaş on August 21st, 2016

Third day of sightseeing in Turkey, maybe this was the least active day so for.
The plan of the day was no more than paragliding down the mountains and over the beaches at Ölüdeniz, and then took the bus to Kaş.

Hotel Frontyard

Hotel Frontyard

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Day 2 of Turkey Vacation: Pamukkale on August 20th, 2016

Second day in Turkey.

Today our plan was to visit Pamukkale, a world natural heritage site not far from the city of Denizli, then catch an afternoon bus to Fethiye.

Sign of Denizli Bus Station

Sign of Denizli Bus Station


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Day 1 of Turkey Vacation: Selcuk on August 19th, 2016

Although it says this post is for the first day in Turkey about Selcuk, but this post should start following flight PC4122 at Izmir Airport.

Izmir Airport Train Station

Izmir Airport Train Station


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Flight Log of Pegasus Airlines Flight 4122 from Istanbul Gökçen to Izmir on August 18th, 2016

This post follows the previous one about flight QR241 from Doha to Istanbul Gokcen.

About my connection.
I was somehow limited by our fares that our outbound flight could only be to this remote airport on the Asian side of Istanbul, with virtually little public transport. So, I deemed the only way to make this work was to immediately fly to our next stop. Similar to most tourists to Turkey, our next stop could be either Goreme or Izmir, depending on whether we took the cycle of cities (Goreme, Antalya, Fethiye, etc) clockwise or anti-clockwise. Since my father had been and was hypercritical about connection times, he picked Izmir with 140-minute transit over Goreme with 120-minute transit. So our next flight was Pegasus Airlines 4122 to Izmir.
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Flight Log of Qatar Airways Flight 241 from Doha to Istanbul Gökçen on August 18th, 2016

This post follows the previous one about flight QR871 from Shanghai to Doha.

Doha Airport Transit Entrance

Doha Airport Transit Entrance


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