Göreme Is a Tourist Town ... And That's OK

What you see when you walk out the front gate of my cave hotel

Let's cut to the chase: Göreme is a tourist town. It exists to show off on the most beautiful, impressive, unique landscapes on Planet Earth to hordes of tourists who travel here from all over the world. And that's OK. There is so much beautiful space, and the tourist hordes travel in very concentrated little tourist bubbles, there is enough Göreme for everyone to enjoy, with only occasional, but brief, delays waiting for the horde to move on to the next instagram photo spot.

That is the view from the third floor of the cave hotel in which I am staying, the Göreme Cave Lodge. The rooms above the first floor are not actual caves, but are merely cave-like. Here's another angle from above:

Small enough to count as a "boutique" hotel.

I don't even have to leave the grounds of my small hotel to see the weird and wonderful landscape of Turkish Cappadocia.

Big giant mega-Turkish flag in downtown Göreme.

Göreme is a tourist town, meaning the downtown is filled with tourist-focused Turkish restaurants, souvenir shops (not all of which sell carpets), and coffee houses, with the side streets dominated by boutique hotels, all of which claim to have cave lodging but only a precious few count as actual, real caves instead of cave-like.

Regardless, the landscape is the star of the show.

I have tours booked for the next two days in Göreme. Tomorrow (Tuesday) is the Red Tour, focused on the hoodoos that in Cappadocia are called "fairy chimneys." The day after that (Wednesday) is the Green Tour, focused on the underground city, which is the main reason I am here in Göreme. But, today, I am a free man in Göreme. Unfettered and alive. So I decided to take in the Göreme Open Air Museum by myself, as opposed to getting a quick look-see with my tour group on tomorrow's Red Tour.

The coffee houses, doner kebap restaurants, and carpet shops are getting scarce, so I must be getting close.

I think those are grape vines, but I am not botanist. Or a horticulturist. I've never even tried to lead a horticulture.

I think you can do a horseriding tour through these rock formations, but I'm not much of a horse-rider. I think they even do camel tours, but I think those are more a stunt than an actual way to see the landscape. But if I were horsine (which is not an actual word although it is often used as if it were) (I'm just linguistically .. brace yourself for it ... horsing around), I would be tempted to do a horse riding tour through the Cappadocia landscape. But I'm not. So I won't. But, still, I will hoof it the rest of the way to the Göreme Open Air Museum.