With you, even the sky feels closer

In Göreme the balloons rise while the last stars are still out, and for a few blue minutes the whole sky leans down to the roofs.

Our hour there

We were up on the roof before the sky had decided anything. The lanterns along the parapet were still lit, the cave windows below were doing the same, and out over the valleys came a sound like someone breathing into a fire: the burners, one after another. I had brought the blanket from our room and forgotten my shoes, so I stood on the cold stone in socks and refused to go back down. The tea went lukewarm in our hands. Then the first balloon lifted, lit from inside, so near the last stars that we both stopped talking. You leaned into me, and the sky did feel closer, as if it had come down to meet us.

If you two go, the hour is nautical dawn to sunrise. Balloons can only launch from half an hour before sunrise, so it is deep blue rather than black: a few bright stars, burners glowing, the village still lit. The glow-over-blue moment lasts maybe ten to twenty-five minutes after the first ones rise. They drift over the valleys, not the rooftops, so a terrace on Aydınlı Hill or Lovers' Hill is where you see them above the village.

One honest thing: book the flight for your first morning, so the second is your fallback. Flights get grounded, and the pickup, around half past four, moves with sunrise. And if you climb Lovers' Hill at sunset the night before, bring a layer. It turns breezy once the sun drops.

♡ We counted balloons out loud and lost track somewhere past forty, then argued all through breakfast about whether the striped one had gone round twice.