Labor day 2025: Istanbul, Cappadocia and Amalfi coast trip

One complaint I get from folks who go to the blog to get travel tips is that they have to go post to post backwards. There is no link from day 1 to day 2.. as I write in start to end sequence. My walking buddies suggested that everytime I finish a “series of posts”, there should be a summary post that describes the placed we stayed in, times between locations, etc.. something that they can literally cut and paste for a future itinerary. So for the first time trying that.

Click on the images to see the individual posts..

Day 1: Fly out of SFO to Istanbul. Start Friday afternoon. Reach Saturday afternoon local time in Istanbul airport.

Day 2: Two hours to reach hotel in old Istanbul area from Airport. Check in, change and visit Grand Bazaar, then walk around, see the Grand Cisterns and have dinner outside the Cisterns at a roof top restaurant, walk around the Sultanahmet mosque and square and get back to hotel.

The Grand Bazaar

Day 3: Sunday (Grand Bazaar is closed) All day walking tour of Istanbul with Viator. Hippodrome, Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia, catwalk at a mall, lunch break on our own, back to hotel, then Topkapi palace, back to hotel, then a night cruise on the Bhosporus strait.

Walking tour..

Topkapi palace

Night cruise

Day 4: Monday : Another morning at Grand Bazzar and walking around, then go to Hammam for 2+ hours, lunch near the Hammam place and back to hotel, pack and leave for Airport. Fly from Istanbul to Nevshehir and a long ride to Cave hotel in Kapadokya (Cappadocia).

Hammam and bye to Istanbul

Day 5 Tuesday: Wake up to see the ballons, then go on an all day Viator tour of Kapadokya. Open air Museum at Goreme, Lover’s hill, Pottery at Avanos, buffet lunch, Imagination point, PInk Valley, underground city of Kaimakli, Pidgeon valley, Uchisar castle, stop for buying Turkish delights, back to Cave hotel. Walking around the Goreme village at night and a dinner in Indian restaurant.

Hot air balloons in Kapadokya

Goreme open air museum

Lover’s hill

Pottery gallery at Avanos

Imagination point and PInk Valley

Kaimakli underground city, Pidgeon valley and Uchisar castle

Day 6 Wednesday: Cancelled Ballon ride. Spend time in the village, drive to Nevshehir airport, fly to Istanbul, wait, fly to Naples (basically entire day in cars, airports), drive from Naples airport to Sorrento hotel.

spending time at cave hotel and off to Naples (all day travel via Istanbul)

Day 7 Thursday: Walking Food tour in Sorrento followed by visiting Church and Cathedral. Back to hotel and walk to the water to spend time in the sea in the public area. Back to hotel, change, visit city center for dinner, followed by sunset viewing.

Sorrento food tour

water time and sunset in Sorrento

Day 8 Friday: Drive to Ercolano to see the buried city of Herculaneum. Then drive to Pompeii to see buried city there, lunch at Pompeii, drive back to Sorrento, short break and Kayaking in sunset in Sorrento.

Buried city of Herculaneum

Pompeii

Kayaking at sunset in Sorrento

Day 9 Saturday: Say bye to Sorrento, load luggage, drive to Positano, spend time seeing vertical village, lunch, then drive to Naples hotel. See the Naples City center, Castle, Galleria Umberto, Via Toledo, ice cream, take out dinner which we had back in hotel with the little one and pack.

Positano Vertical village

An evenings in Naples

Day 10 Sunday: Early morning flight from Naples to Rome and Rome to SFO and back by Sunday late afternoon. Time to recover in time to head back to office Monday!

Had to take five days off instead of 4 as Turkish airlines flight time moved earlier. So had to take off Friday before labor day.

There was something for everyone in the family in this trip. No check in baggage. Managed to pack only clothes (fortunately summer clothes) and do a 9 day trip with a carry on bag each. Did not buy anything that would add to weight. Didn’t take laptops on trip. It was an exercise in luggage frugality. Enjoyed it thoroughly.

Hope this summary post helps you better. If it does drop me a note or let me know on FB and will do this for all future trips.

Staying at a cave hotel, missed chances and saying bye to Turkey

The previous post in this series is here..

After a quick dinner at the Indian place in the village, when Jr. and me walked back up to our cave room, we were given the news that the little one will not be joining us for the balloon ride in the morning. She will be resting and hydrating and will not be up before the sun. There was to be no negotiation and given my history of saying things like “we have come all this way and we may not come here again.. etc.” there was a family restraining order of me speaking anything within ear shot of the litle one. Gave her a hug, asked her to sleep and we all crashed. It had been a long day. All day tours can be fun but draining. Too much information for the brain and a lot of walking without realizing it.. with the potential to end up dehydrated.

The hotel was told that we will be three people going for the balloon ride. We woke up at 5AM and made it to the hotel entrance where a bus picked us up. After picking up a lot more people we ended up driving to the balloon launch point. There were a 1000+ people waiting around trucks with the balloons and every company had a breakfast table setup with croissants and coffee.

Unfortunately, after an hour of waiting, our ride was cancelled. The winds were too heavy and the air traffic control did not give a green signal. Our guides said “no more waiting, we go back. we will drop you off and you will get full refund”. An hour later we were back in the hotel with only a few photos of us at sunrise to show for it. The little one was still fast asleep. When we went to breakfast later and told her we never went up on the ballooons, she just rolled her eyes and was happy she slept in. Good news was she was back to her normal self. Given our morning was a wash, we just packed, ate breakfast late (almost made it a brunch) and told the kids that we were going down to the village.

The balloon refund came in local currency. It was 120 dollars per person and what were we to do with so much in local currency when we were leaving Turkey same evening? San was determined to exchange it to Euro or USD and we walked an hour and a half to every travel agent, a Western union, local post office, etc. etc. in the Goreme village, with no luck.. Finally one of the travel offices agreed to change it. We lost some in the transaction but it was still better than airport exchange rates. When we walked back to the hotel, the girls were ready to leave.

We took some pictures in the verandah of the hotel. We have to say that this was a unique experience staying in a cave. The Kelebek Cave Hotel was excellent. The food was great. The rooms were good. The service was excellent. It is on top of the hill so everytime you walk down, you get quite a workout walking back up. All said and done, if you are a fit person, this is an amazing place to stay. Strongly recommend it.

A video of the special cave hotel experience…

It was time for the ride back to Nevshehir airport in the shared van. This time it was in broad daylight and the driver was good.

We flew back to Istanbul, then after a two hour wait at the airport and a lot of walking within the airport, flew out to Naples. Was reminded of my Turkish friend again as we flew past

The kids had combined the Amalfi coast with this trip as a “fair” compromise. All of us enjoyed all places at the end. So it worked out. Just before leaving the Kelebek hotel, I was informed that given our flight timings and train timings, we had two choices. Pay 250 USD for a one way Uber from Naples airport to Sorrento or rent a car for all three days which would be the same 250 USD. Six eyes were looking at me.. and I said fine. Will drive. That turned out to be a disguised blessing.

Will continue this series from Naples later today..

Living under a rock gets a new meaning - Kaymakli and a few more stop

Previous post on this all day tour of Kapadokya is here..

It was very hot outside and thankfully we were visiting the biggest attraction in this area. The underground cave city of Kaymakli. Three floors down are open to visitors, the rest are still being inspected for safety. It goes down more floors.

The locals used to live underground while waring armies would cross the surface, sometimes for months. It was temporary refuge, built with a lot of safety features. You enter it through an un assuming gap in the top of what looks like an animal shelter. They would put the animals there and no one would walk past the dung into this hole.. once in, it opened up to so many chambers. 30,000 people lived here to survive. There were rooms, kitchens, labor delivery places, wine storage, water storage, all cramped for space and not easy to navigate without bumping your head but survival demanded it and they managed it within these confines. There was ventilation and temperatures were controlled. Human ingenuity at its best thousands of years ago!

Again, the pictures and videos do NOT even come close to the experience of walking through these underground dwellings. We are a resilient species, but we are also our worst enemy as a species. No other organism kills more of its own kind like we do.

Here are the photos..

and a video highlights reel..

If you go to Kapadokya (or Cappadocia) please make it a point to visit this cave city!

After the cave city tour, we got to drive a bit and get to Pidgeon valley. The whole place has the birds taking over small caves in the wall faces of the rocks. There was a jewelry store across this stop. They sell a gemstone found only in that area that changes color in sunlight. This is called Zultanite! They also mine Onyx which is local to the region. The jewelry was gorgeous and tasteful. If you take a bunch of ladies with you into a store like that.. be mentally prepared for what is to follow.

After this stop we went to the Uchisar castle, which is now a police lookout point. We can only see it from below. It is yet another cone which has been holed out into a castle! Got some photos from this place including the dunes facing it. We drove back to our hotel to see a gorgeous sunset, said bye to our fellow tourists and tourguide.

The little one was not feeling well. She wanted local cuisine and I wanted Indian food which would be safe. Was also feeling weird what with going in and out of air conditioning, caves etc. So we went to an Indian place in the village. It was a steep walk down. It was good food. Good service. San walked back up with the little one, while Jr. and me went shopping in the village for magnets and a T-shirt.

We were worried about what was to come the next day.