New Year in Cappadocia: 5 days of valleys on foot, underground cities and balloons at dawn

The New Year where you sleep inside the rock

We meet on the evening of 29 December at the hotel in Göreme, among the fairy chimneys: you choose your flight, from Milan or wherever suits you, and if you like you can spend a night in Istanbul on the way. In winter Cappadocia changes face: the coaches disappear, snow settles on the tuff, and the valleys that are an oven in summer walk beautifully at ten degrees under a clean sky.

Three real walking days: the frescoed churches carved into the tuff of the Open Air Museum and sunset from the Red Valley; on the 31st the underground city of Derinkuyu — eight floors dug into the earth, where twenty thousand people once lived — and the Ihlara valley, a hundred-metre canyon with Byzantine churches in its walls; on New Year's Day, after a free morning to recover from the party, the descent from the Uçhisar rock down Pigeon Valley.

Why go with us

• You walk inside the valleys instead of touring the viewpoints by coach.
• New Year's Eve dinner in Göreme, in a restaurant carved into the rock, and midnight on the terrace.
• New Year's morning is free: we set off again after lunch, taking it easy.
• Every entrance fee in the programme is already in the price: museum, Derinkuyu and Ihlara.
• Small group, 12 Guidders max, with a licensed local guide and a Guiddy Coordinator.

Good to know

The flight is not included: we meet at the hotel in Göreme at 20:30 on the 29th. Below you will find the suggested flight, landing in Kayseri at 18:50: from there Göreme is an hour away by the hotel shuttle (at your own cost) or taxi. On 2 January we say goodbye at the hotel after breakfast. We deliberately leave the balloon ride out of the price: it costs €180-250 and only flies when the wind allows, so the Coordinator books it on the spot, at dawn on the 30th or 31st, and you pay only if it flies. Turkey requires a passport, not an identity card.