We will be visiting Cappadocia area end May for 5 days. We will probably do couple of tours but would like to do some of the valley hikes on our own. Are the Love Valley, Rose Valley and Ihlara hikes easy to navigate on our own with clear signage? Just wondering since sometimes we can be directionally challenged and many of the guides books do not have detailed maps of the hikes. Many thanks for any advice.

We just got back last week from our trip there. Overall, I would say "yes" to your question. There were a couple of moments in both our Love and Ilhara Valley treks when we weren't 100% sure what to do, and had to backtrack just a bit. A couple of times, we had to get our feet a little wet too. Don't expect a whole lot of signage, per se, but you can generally tell which way you're supposed to go.

You can read our trip report here, if you're interested:
http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...cappadocia.cfm

It's a great place to hike. Enjoy!

We just did Ihlara and Love valley hikes week before last, and just a small part of the Rose Valley.

Ihlara is pretty well marked. There's really just a path on one side of the river and some bridges and signs when you can cross to see a church, etc. A couple of times, we had a find and negotiate a secondary path to get around a mud puddle or something, but nothing terribly confusing. For Ihlara, if you're doing this on your own, think about the logistics. If you're driving, you might need to hike "round trip"; not sure if there's any transportation available between points on the route. It is 13-14 km from one end to the other (also 90 minutes drive from the tourist center). We did the first third and had a driver who dropped us at one end and picked us up at a designated point along the way.

The Love Valley was great. We did it from end to end (with some guidance from our hotel proprietor). I think you can also do a round trip from one end of the valley (the end with the rock formations). That end seemed to have a well worn (if not marked) path, but I wouldn't say the whole valley did. In most cases, it was pretty obvious where to go, but there were a few places where we had to stop and think about what to do next--for example, walking for a bit in a dry(ish) stream bed. We thoroughly enjoyed it, though, and there was no one else there. In May, perhaps there will be more hikers. DD has a compass on her iPhone, and we resorted to using it a few times to make sure we were directionally correct!

We just touched the Rose valley, so I can't say. My impression from a map that we had is that there are multiple trails through that area.

If you click on my screen name, I responded to another post on these yesterday and described our experience a little more. Your hotel should be able to provide a lot more information; ours did.

Ilhara is more or less a straight shot that follows along a stream, so it is the easiest. We had a driver drop us at one end and meet us at the other--he gave us the town name, etc. It was so peaceful and wonderful, watching people fish and farm.
Love Valley was not too difficult, but we were not sure how long it was going to be so we wondered a few times if we were going in the right direction. We picked it up by the jewelry store (you can get all of this info from your hotel, including maps--but the maps were not great) and walked it to Cavusin. It meanders, but there are trail markers if memory serves.
We only skirted Rose valley and because we had walked all day and were worried about getting lost, we did not venture deeper into it. Definitely do it! Walk them all!

Oops, looks like mr_go and I were posting at the same time. Back to work for both of us!

LOL--that explains it, I read it as 2 responses from ms_go. Good to see you both had similar impressions!

ms_go: <i>Back to work for both of us!</i>

Hey, that's why my post was so short in the first place!