NOV 19, 2021, FRIDAY:
We had SUNEXPRESS flight from Kayseri airport, Cappadocia at 4.30 pm, landing at Antalya at 5.40 pm. The Kayseri airport is 80 km from Goreme. We had to return our car at the AVEC rental office at 2 pm; we had collected the car at 12, they give a grace period of 2 hours more for return... if later than that, it'll be one more days rent. So our day's plans had to fit into this time schedule.
In the morning we were again woken by the BOOM of the balloons being fired up. Our hotel has a terrace. We had watched the balloons from our room window the previous day. So we went up to the terrace... no other hotel guest there and we enjoyed the amazing sight .
Then we went for the hotel breakfast. It had been great the previous 2 days, things were scaled down that day, they had not even cleaned the glass of the windows and the food was mediocre.
LOVE VALLEY OR AVANOS?
We checked out. We had been wondering if we should go to Love valley which we had missed when driving back from Derinkuyu. We had gone up the path per our GPS, seen a dead end. There had been a hand made sign on a side narrow path, we had been scared to take that , darkness was descending and we had returned to the hotel.
Thinking it may be more of the same chimneys, we decided to visit Avanos pottery village [so cute] on our drive back to airport.
AVANOS.... WHERE TO GO?
Avanos (population 12,000), on the banks of the Kızılırmak River is 8 km north of Goreme. Problem was where in the village we can get to see some nice pieces. I had read there was some public art in the form of pottery at the bridge. We marked up that bridge and drove there. We crossed the bridge and drove slowly. Saw the Avanos sign and a pretty Jug and cup sculpture.
Took some pics We had just parked our car roadside, it pays to travel in off season.. No parking hassles or crowds. The river is called the Red river as its banks have the red mud so suitable for pottery. We read the fountain info and mistakenly though it was somewhere we had to trek to.
We drove toward the roundabout to see the sculpture of a pile of pots.
enjoyed watching the mirror reflection in the river.
When we walked back, lo and behold, the fountain was in action.... so pretty.
We were very happy we had seen the fountain. Now for hitting up the main drag with pottery shops.... tours took their groups to see pottery demos and try their hands at it too. So far the street we saw was just a sleepy routine one. We saw a tour van and hastily drove behind it. It whizzed off.... we drove a bit and saw where tour vans are parked. There was a street nearby, full of lovely shops. We drove right up and parked. Individual cars don't need to pay any parking fee. We walked around enjoying the displays outside. Several touts approached offering to give us discounts on exclusive deals. We told them we will return the next day and they left us alone.
Varied experiences in Cappadocia and we were very happy it was all our choice and at our pace.
We could have browsed around more but time was getting on.
RENTAL CAR RETURN & FLIGHT TO ANTALYA
We were on our way to the airport. Our GPS was not giving the route, we made do with signs.... there weren't many near the airport. We just looked at the blue dot on the map and navigated. We reached the airport and found the rental on our map. We drove in there just at 2! WHEW!
Rental guy drove us to the airport in the same car....
SUNEXPRESS had allowed us to check in online, bag drop, boarding pass was in a minute,
Flight was pleasant and we reached on time at Antalya airport
ANTALYA CAR RENTAL
Rental guy was nowhere to be found. We had talked to them on SKYPE before the trip, they must have forgotten.
We had to use the international call on phone to call them as airport wifi was not catching. We got picked up after the call and our car was handed over.
Opel Corsa, automatic, full insurance for 980 liras... 4 days... 19th evening to 23rd morning in our case
we were returning the car to catch our 9.20 am flight to Izmir and wanted to ensure some one will be around. The rental office opened at 7 am and we told them we'll be around early.
We were not too confident and were nervous they won't be around .... based on them not meeting us at the airport. It was not a question of dropping the key and the car. We had to be driven to the airport. The rental office was not near any bustling place, taxi would have been hard to come by early on a winter morning [it all turned out ok 4 days later... he jumped 2 red lights, oversped and we were at the airport , covering that couple of kilometers in seconds.]
Our GPS was still not giving the route. It had become dark by 6 pm. .
ANTALYA ALE BOUTIQUE APARTMENTS
We reached our apartment and settled down. Downloaded the maps again on the phone, then the GPS issues disappeared rest of the trip.
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