The ancient city of Cappadocia has been a marvel of history for thousands of years, several cultures have settled the caves in these valleys for millennia, some into the twentieth century. Its position on the silk road has cemented it at the crossroads of history. Today however, the city is largely empty, but for a few hundred balloons that populate the skies when weather permits.

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That the hot air balloons of Cappadocia have a mystical quality about them is not merely superficial - Turkey was a land of aviation pioneers hundreds of years before the Wright brothers ever left the ground, some arguing that the Da Vinci-esque Turkish inventor and aviator Hezârfen Ahmed Çelebi was the first human to ever take flight in the 1600s. While lighter than air flight was formally invented in France, the balloons take to the city of caves like they’ve always been there. Even if you know nothing of its history, the landscape looks as though it could tell a thousands stories, and the balloons fill the sky with the silence of ghosts. That’s the poetry of it at least. ⠀⠀

In reality, the balloons are the result of a few savvy travel entrepreneurs that developed flight infrastructure here in the 1990s, the slow pace of balloon travel has proven just right for those who want to float above the rock and breathe in the history.