What's the must-see thing in Cappadocia?

The balloon flight is the answer, and you likely already knew that. What you might not know is how much the experience depends on your operator. Butterfly Balloons, Royal Balloon, and Voyager Balloons are the three with the longest safety records in Göreme. A standard flight runs €170-250 per person for 60 minutes of air time. You'll wake at 4:45am in summer, step into air that's still cool at around 14°C, and watch 100-plus balloons lift off the valley floor as the tuff columns below shift from grey to pale orange. The pilots drop low enough that you can hear dogs barking in Çavuşin village, then climb to 300 metres where Göreme National Park spreads below. Flights get cancelled for wind about 1 day in 4 during April and October, less often in July and August. Book your flight for your first morning. If it cancels, you have buffer days. If it flies, you'll be back at your hotel by 8:15am, early enough for the Open Air Museum before the tour buses arrive.

The Göreme Open Air Museum sits 1.5 kilometres uphill from Göreme town centre, a 15-minute walk on a paved road that gets hot by 10am in summer. Inside, you'll find roughly 30 rock-cut churches and refectories carved by Byzantine monks between the 10th and 12th centuries. The Dark Church (Karanlık Kilise) is the one to prioritize. Its frescoes survived because a collapsed entrance blocked sunlight for centuries, and the blues and reds still look wet. Entry to the museum runs around 700 TRY (about $15 at today's rate of 46.48 TRY per dollar), with the Dark Church costing an additional 200 TRY. Go early. The site opens at 8am, and by 10:30am tour buses from Nevşehir fill the narrow paths between chapels. You'll smell dry volcanic dust and hear the scrape of shoes on soft tufa. The whole visit takes 90 minutes if you read the plaques, 45 if you don't.

Kaymaklı Underground City is 20 kilometres south of Göreme, roughly a 25-minute drive. The town dates to around 500 AD, though the tunnels themselves likely go back to the Phrygians, perhaps 3,000 years. Eight levels have been excavated. Only four are open to visitors. The ceilings drop to about 160 centimetres in places, so tall visitors will duck constantly. The air underground sits at a steady 13-15°C year-round, which feels cold after the 24°C surface temperature in June. You'll notice the ventilation shafts still pull a faint draft through the stone corridors. Bring a light layer. Entry costs around 500 TRY ($11). The alternative underground city, Derinkuyu, goes deeper with 8 open levels but draws larger groups and the queues move slower. Kaymaklı is the better first visit. Allow 45-60 minutes inside.

A common mistake is trying to fit all three into one day. Don't. The balloon takes your entire morning until about 8:15am, and the adrenaline crash tends to hit around noon. Day one should be the balloon plus a walk through Göreme town's carpet shops and pottery workshops along Müze Caddesi. Day two, hit the Open Air Museum at 8am, then drive to Kaymaklı in the afternoon when the morning bus groups have cleared out. If you have a third day, Ihlara Valley is a 14-kilometre gorge walk with riverside churches and poplar shade that's quieter than anything near Göreme. Skip the Turkish Night dinner shows in Avanos. They're overpriced at 800-1,200 TRY and the food is cafeteria-grade mantı reheated for tour groups. Eat instead at Topdeck Cave Restaurant in Göreme, where the lamb testi kebab arrives in a sealed clay pot that the waiter cracks open at your table, releasing a cloud of tomato-scented steam.