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Cappadocia, Kappadokya as it is pronounced, was not as difficult to reach as I expected (Turkish).
We had arrived in Turkey through Istanbul’s second airport Sabiha Gökçen (*). The airport hotel is only a couple of minutes walk from the terminal and is surprisingly good for overnight stopovers. We flew to Ankara the next morning and then hired a car for the remainder of the journey. In retrospect, I think it would have been better to drive from Istanbul. It’s about 600 km, 300 km to Ankara and another 300 km to Cappadocia and on good roads I estimate around 6 hours travelling time.
We arrived in Uçhisar towards 4pm and checked into our hotel, argos in Cappadocia (*). The hotel is essentially the old village rebuilt. Some years ago Uçhisar was moved from the east to the west side of the hill and the old village fell into disrepair, a ruin rather than a ghost town. Since 1997 the houses and courtyards have been gradually renovated and in 2010 the hotel was opened. There are now 53 rooms. The concept “a village with a reception desk” is perhaps overstated, but the labyrinth of narrow streets, stairways, passages and courtyards does give the sense of a hill-top village. From the terrace outside our room we had a panoramic view of the whole region.