Cappadocia Valleys and Pottery: Rose Valley and Red Valley Sunset Hike, Avanos Pottery on the Kizilirmak, Zelve Open Air Museum Cave Village, Three Beauties Rock Formation, and Urgup Wine Tasting
The Cappadocia valleys and craft route covers the Rose Valley and Red Valley sunset hiking circuit with the most dramatic color changes in the tuff formations, the Avanos pottery tradition on the Kizilirmak River, the Zelve Open Air Museum abandoned cave village, the Three Beauties fairy chimney formation, and the Urgup Cappadocia wine tasting.
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Rose Valley and Red Valley: The Sunset Circuit
The Rose Valley and Red Valley hiking circuit from the Goreme village to the Cavusin village, covering 7 kilometers through the most dramatically colored fairy chimney landscapes in Cappadocia, is named for the rose and red colors that the volcanic tuff takes at sunrise and sunset when the iron oxide in the stone reacts to the low-angle light. The sunset walk from Goreme through the Rose Valley to the Cavusin cliff church and back via the Red Valley is the most photogenically concentrated 3-hour walk in Cappadocia and the experience most consistently recommended by photographers who have covered the Cappadocia circuit.
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Avanos Pottery: The Kizilirmak Red Clay Tradition
Avanos on the Kizilirmak River, the town with the longest continuous pottery production tradition in Turkey using the distinctive red clay from the Kizilirmak riverbed that the Hittites first worked 4,000 years ago, is the most authentic craft destination in Cappadocia with the working pottery workshops where the visitor can take lessons in the wheel-throwing technique and see the entire production process from the clay preparation to the kiln firing. The Avanos pottery market on the main square is the best place to buy the Cappadocia pottery souvenir directly from the producing families.
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Zelve Open Air Museum: The Abandoned Cave Village
Zelve, the cave village abandoned in 1952 when the rockfall danger made continued habitation impossible, is the most complete example of the inhabited cave community in Cappadocia with the 3 separate valleys of cave dwellings, the cave mosques with the carved inscriptions, the cave churches with the fresco fragments, and the mill caves with the stone grinding wheels still in place. The Zelve valley system provides the most intimate encounter with the daily life of the cave-dwelling community because the domestic scale of the rooms and the evidence of actual habitation makes Zelve more personally affecting than the grander monastic complexes.
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Three Beauties: The Most Photographed Formation
The Three Beauties, the group of three fairy chimneys with the particularly well-preserved andesite caps near the Urgup-Avanos road, is the most photographed single fairy chimney formation in Cappadocia and the image most frequently used to represent the Cappadocia landscape in travel media and tourism promotion. The formation is accessible from the roadside viewpoint and the late afternoon light on the west-facing chimney group provides the warm tones that the travel photographers seek.
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Urgup Wine: The Cappadocia Vineyard Tradition
Urgup, the largest town in the Cappadocia tourist circuit, is also the center of the Cappadocia wine production region where the volcanic tuff soil and the high-altitude continental climate produce the Emir white and the Kalecik Karasi red varietals that have been cultivated in the Urgup area since the Hittite period. The Turasan and Kocabag wineries in the Urgup area offer the wine tasting and the cellar tour that provides the cultural counterpoint to the geological and historical circuit and the most unexpected high quality wine experience in Turkey.
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Cappadocia Valleys: The Complete Walk Calendar
The complete Cappadocia valley walking calendar, with the morning start in the Love Valley fairy chimneys, the midday in the Goreme Open Air Museum, the afternoon in the Rose Valley, and the sunset from the Aktepe Hill above Goreme, provides the most visually complete single day in Cappadocia. The 3-day visit that adds the Pigeon Valley, the Devrent Imagination Valley, the Monk Valley at Pasabag, and the Red Valley to the circuit covers the essential walking routes of the Cappadocia landscape without the organized tour and at the natural pace that the valley hiking rewards.