In a perfect world we would have done both, by self-driving a triangle from Istanbul to Ephesus (along the coast), then on to the heart land of Turkey (where Cappadocia is located), and back to Istanbul... however for this trip we needed to make a decision.
Both destinations offered different features... we were told Cappadocia offered a strange landscape with underground cities and hot air balloon rides, while Ephesus offered beautiful coastal vistas, and magnificent roman ruins.
After much consideration we decided to head to Cappadocia, and as Teresa has mentioned in another blog entry we're glad we did... it was a wonderful adventure.
Bill Fuchs (a close friend from New York) asked if he could fly over to Turkey and join us for an impromptu vacation, so the three of us headed off to the local Avis office and hired a car for our fun road trip. PS. The Avis office has moved in the past 3 mths, so don't trust the google maps location for Avis near Tuskin square.
Once on the road we very pleased with the quality of the roads, which made the 900km (560 miles) trip a relative pleasure. Once we had worked out how the electronic toll system worked (after running a couple of red lights we realized we were using the wrong lanes) the journey went without incident.
Once on the road, the chaos of the Instanbul city streets gave way to smooth highways and beautiful green country sides, even the road side cafes offered pretty reasonable food. But the highways, roaming green fields, and distant blue mountains couldn't prepare us for the Cappadocian vista.
We stayed in a small tourist town called Goreme, at a little hotel that Teresa found online called Caravanserai Cave Hotel, which had great reviews and didn't disappoint.
We had a great time driving around the area, it was great to have a rental car so that we could set our own agenda, and felt like kids again scrabbling over rocks, exploring caves, eating grilled fish straight from a stream (at least we think it was freshly caught), and taking a hot air balloon flight.
The bottom-line was that the Cappidocian people were wonderfully friendly, the landscape was amazing, and the food and adventures were more fun than we could have predicted.
We still don't really know what Ephesus really has to offer, but we are very glad we decided on Cappidocia for this trip.
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