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!

Romania

This past weekend Erin and I went to Romania for a mini-break, about twenty years after my brother went there on a singing trip as a teenager back when Ceausescu was still in power. Even though we were only gone for three days, it felt more like a week and a half. We took the bus from Istanbul on Thursday at 3pm, arriving in Bucharest 12 hours later. We made our way to the train station and sat in the bar until 4:30am when McDonald's opened so we were able to have coffee and a snack. We hopped aboard the 6:30am train Friday morning from Bucharest to Brasov and spent the day sightseeing around Brasov: we took the cable car up Mt Tampa to the Brasov sign and hiked down, walked around the picturesque center, went to the historical museum, ate pizza loaded with pork products, and generally fit in as much as we could on two hours of sleep.

Saturday we woke up and had breakfast in the hostel with a group of Peace Corps volunteers over 50 who were just about to begin their service in Romania. Then we went to the station to take the bus to Bran to see Bran (Dracula's) Castle. We had fun in the souvenir market and while touring Bran Castle ran into some Americans who worked for NATO and were living in Izmir, Turkey (what are the odds of running into other Americans, also living in Turkey, in Romania?). They were very nice and were getting some sightseeing in before the NATO summit this coming week.

After heading back to Brasov we took the 4pm train to Sinaia where we tried to see as much as possible before sunset. We decided it would be easier to stay in Sinaia so we started to head up the mountain to a hotel recommended by Lonely Planet. We FINALLY made it, only to find the hotel closed but the restaurant open. While we ate we decided to try to make it to Bucharest that night. We went back down the mountain and tried to follow the Lonely Planet directions, but we ended up in a tiny town called Azuga feeling frustrated, so we went back to Sinaia only to find we had just missed the last train. We waited for awhile on the main road hoping we could hail a bus and after about fifteen minutes a young guy who spoke English offered to drive us. Once in Bucharest, he picked up his girlfriend and they drove us right to the hostel door which was incredibly nice of them, especially as by then it was about 1am.

Sunday morning we explored Bucharest. It was surprisingly empty (where were all the people?) and a little more...dilapidated than we were expecting. The buildings were grand and impressive, though the most impressive buildings were built by Ceausescu and have been left unfinished in the same state they were in twenty years ago when he was arrested and executed. We really wanted to take a tour of the Palace of Parliament, the largest administrative building in the world after the Pentagon, but sadly it was closed to the public due to the upcoming NATO summit. After being told it was closed, we went across the street and sat down to consult our map but a couple of seconds later we had three policemen around us (apparently we were loitering?) and the conversation went like this:

Post-communist policeman (PCP): What are you doing in Romania?
Us: We're tourists
PCP: Why are you at the Palace of Parliament?
Us: It's the top tourist attraction in Bucharest
PCP: Give me your passports
Erin: Seriously?!
PCP: (in Terminator voice) Seriously. (looked at our info pages, then handed them back)
me: Can you help us? We're looking for Filaret Station. Here's our map.
PCP: (looks at map) Go down that street. (points)
me: But that's the opposite direction of Filaret Station.
PCP: GO that way! (points down same street)
Us: But, uh, well, oh... oh, okay...

So we walked in the opposite direction we needed to go in just to humor the policemen. Eventually, we took a taxi to the station and I was able to have a conversation with the driver because Romanian sounds a lot like Italian, and with a romance language background I found it surprisingly accessible. We got the bus back to Istanbul, and made it home at 4am. A successful trip!