Cappadocia

This weekend I made the 450 mile trip from Istanbul to Cappadocia to see the out-of-this-world rock formations, ancient churches and cities, local craftsmanship, and troglodytes. I stayed in a cave hotel and spent two full days touring around the region. The first day I saw Devrent Valley, also known as the Valley of Fairy Chimneys where the volcanic cones are best formed and most densely clustered. The cones are topped by darker, harder rock that sheltered the cones from the rain until all the surrounding rock eroded around it.

Next the tour went to Pasabag, where the fairy chimneys were sometimes clustered in twos and threes. There was a camel at Pasabag (pronounced Pashabah) for photo ops; I don’t think that camels are indigenous to the region.

For our last stop before lunch we went to Avanos where we went to a pottery and tile making shop where we watched a presentation on pottery making and then we were able to browse the gallery and shop. Since their products are handmade and hand-painted the prices were maybe five times higher than factory made products that look the same.

After lunch we went to the Goreme Open Air Museum which was the highlight of the day. It’s a cluster of about 30 Byzantine churches, chapels, and monestaries, mostly made and occupied between 300-1200AD. Inside many are impressive frescoes which date from the 9th to 11th centuries. We also went to Uchisar Castle where there are lots of tunnels and windows. Last stop of the day we went to a government funded carpet weaving co-op where we watched women making carpets. We were able to make a few knots before being bombarded with a carpet salesman for another half-hour.

Day two started off with a 5 km hike up and down Rose Valley. The weather was beautiful and everyone on the tour had a blast. Then we went to Kaymakli, one of about 36 underground cities. Kaymakli is one of the biggest and best preserved. It goes down eight stories, but only four are open to the public for safety reasons. The volcanic rock gets harder when it’s exposed to oxygen, so the further down you go, the softer the rock gets. We were told on our tour that the cities date back 5000 years, but Lonely Planet says 4000 years. Either way, they were definitely occupied by the 7th century BC. Apparently, the Ancient Greek historian Xenophon mentioned the cities in his ‘Anabasis.’ Inside, you can see large round stones used to seal off the city during times of invasion, different large stones used for grinding spices. There are places to store wine (one must eat and be merry while being attacked) and even a small chapel. The tunnels leading from floor to floor are very narrow and short, even I had to duck considerably. It was amazing.

We stopped by Pigeon Valley (there are pigeon houses carved into the cliffs) and lastly at an onyx and turquoise factory where we were able to watch a man make an onyx egg (which I won!) and then inside we were shown the difference between Arizona, Chinese, Iranian, and Turkish turquoise. Turquoise the word originally meant Turkish stone.

Before leaving, I had dinner with some people from my tour at a restaurant in Goreme that served pottery kebabs (pictured in the slide show). The kebab is actually cooked in pottery and is brought to your table with a hammer for you to break open and eat. They were fantastic!