Cappadocia, Turkey — THE CUCKOO PROJECT

We landed late, so it was dark during our drive into Cappadocia. While checking into our hotel, The Sultan Cave Suites, we were greeted by the hotel dog, Ismir, who has become somewhat Instagram famous. All the rooms at Sultan Cave Suites are carved out of the rock formations, so it’s like you’re sleeping in a cave. Although this was really unique, we should have known better from our research that people were more interested in getting 'the shot' rather than taking in the views. Oh well, you live and you learn!

Cappadocia is like a hot air balloon festival everyday. Each morning as the sunrises, hundreds of hot air balloons light up the morning sky. Two of the three mornings we were there the winds were too strong, so they had to cancel the balloon rides. Unfortunately, we were scheduled for one of these days, but luckily, we still got to see the balloons go up one morning - Hailey preferred seeing them from the ground anyway.

Cappadocia is an open air museum, but everything is pretty spread out, so we decided to hire a private driver for the day. It wasn't much more than a group tour and allowed us to see a lot more! We made it to all the spots on our list and enjoyed getting to know our driver. He taught us how to play backgammon with the locals and took us to a local spot for Turkish tea, it was one of our favorite memories from the trip!

We had checked all the sights off our list, so on our last day we decided to go on a hike. It was 3pm and over 100 degrees, but Danny promised there was a winery at the end of the hike.... However, upon getting to the winery, we realized it was closed. Apparently, they don’t keep it open during the hot summer months. We'll try again on our next trip to Cappadocia!

On our last night in Cappadocia, Danny surprised me with an upgrade at The Museum Hotel - it was amazing! The pool and views were great, service and staff were incredible, food was delicious, and room the was absolutely perfect.