Turkey - Cappadocia side trip

Not the best start to our trip – the hotel transfer to the airport booked through the travel agent did not arrive. SS commandeered the PC in the reception area, leaving me to fret and twiddle my thumbs whilst he lived it up on Reuters. Ho hum. This is not ideal when it is 5:15am, we have been up early, have not had breakfast, and the flight is at 7am. So we got our own taxi at 5:50am, which got us to the airport at 6:20am. Luckily SS had 30TL on him, otherwise that would have delayed us even more. Once inside, the queue was interminable but the nasty man on the ropes would not let us jump the line. Apparently everyone was late – it is practically Turkish policy. We finally managed to check in and get to the gate as the flight was closing. Sigh. All very unnecessary. Flight was fine – 1hr20minutes, and they fed us which was welcome (cheese and tomato roll and an apple yoghurt with tea).

We landed, and luckily this time the transfer man was waiting for us. The car was hilarious – where else in the world would you find a Turkish carpet on the floor of a minivan? But the seats were comfortable, and we were on the move. It was a 50 minute drive to Goreme, and SS alternated between taking photos and going to sleep on my shoulder.

Goreme was very sweet, and luckily we were able to have some more breakfast from the last of the buffet whilst our room was prepared (no 309 at the Sultan Cave Suites). Very happy to be able to go in and have a quick rest. The room was stunning – with a small balcony overlooking the fairy chimneys (as the formations are known). Our room was partially carved into the rock, and the bathroom was all rock walls being at the back – it did make it feel a bit like going into a cave to have a shower, but was as authentic as I was willing to get. SS took the opportunity to get some sun on the balcony.

At 10:30am we headed out to meet our photographer tour guide, Jules. We had booked on a 4 hour photography tour of Goreme and the surroundings. Jules was an interesting character – she had done a finance degree but then went back and studied photography in the US. She had lived in USA, Germany, Switzerland, and now Turkey.

First we headed to some peaks near the horse sanctuary on the way to the Open Air Museum. Very good use of the available rock formations to provide stabling for the horses!

This was the best light of the day

– as the day went on the light got brighter and brighter, which unfortunately is not great for the photos as you will see.

But we got some lovely photos here, and walked around the top of the hill, looking at the remains of the rooms, and chapels of the people who had lived there 1800 years before.

They must have spent all their time hollowing out caves and rooms, altho’ with my home renovators hat on, it did seem quite attractive to be able to just carve out a new set of shelves whenever they were needed. SS and Jules were confidently striding up and down the slidy, loose rocks, whilst I followed more gingerly on my bottom most of the time. It was also about the time that I should have been applying sunscreen, but guess what I had left in the room in Istanbul???? Oh well, I ended up quite shiny beetroot red by the end of it all, since I had also forgotten to bring a hat.

I did also enjoy finding recognisable shapes in all the rock formations - does anyone else see a lion's head here?

We also got a view of the coaches all parked up in the Open Air Museum - a harbinger of things to come later when we were heading there for a tour - it was packed with aimless tourists! Much nicer to have a personalised tour walking around and in the remains of the houses, taking the photographs we wanted!

Next, we drove to Love Valley - another area with quite different peaks – much taller and narrower.

There was some graffiti around as well, which was curiously apt when SS stood taking photos – here he is!

There was also the obligatory pomegranate juice seller, and SS was thrilled to try white pomegranate for a change.

As we walked around, Jules pointed out the wild grape vines, which at this time of year had small wizened sultanas on them – they were really nice, and SS immediately put away the camera in favour of searching out more sultanas. Tasty snack!

It was interesting as well to notice how there are still people eking a living in inhospitable places - this little hut on top of the escarpment - perhaps this is where the pomegranate juice seller lives?

We took some more photographs - it was hard to take a bad one there!

Lastly we headed to Pigeon Valley where the light was really bad, it would have been lovely in the early morning, but by 1pm, the light was not conducive to photographs. We did have a look at the small church that remains there – it is still used for weddings, and Jules told us how she had decorated the small chapel with candles and greenery for a friend’s wedding recently – I am sure it would have looked lovely.

There were some lovely little smurf style houses in Pigeon Valley - I would have liked to go back when the light was better, but I did what I could with the photographs...

There were also very pretty views back towards Goreme itself.

And here again, does this remind anyone of Easter Island?? And what about the little house with the surprised face??


We decided to go to a nearby village to take some photos as the light changed. It was good to have some buildings and people to focus on instead of the rock formations at this point, and we got some nice photographs of people going about their normal day.

An interesting thing I noticed around the village was the various forms of locking mechanisms used on doors, varying from plastic bags, to metal locks, to boards...

There was also a lot of open air drying of various fruits and squashes going on...

We walked up above the village and watched the light change over the escarpment, just sitting and talking on the rocks. Really pleasant afternoon. We got the full story of Jules’ ex-boyfriend who is involved with the horse sanctuary, and how she has to avoid him now which is difficult in a small place like Goreme.
As we sat there, some local boys headed past up the hill with some supplies for a small picnic. Crisps and soft drink seem to be the food of choice globally for a certain age group. It was very relaxing.

We walked back down through the village, taking advantage of the light starting to set to take some more photographs of village life...

We walked back down to the jeep, then Jules drove us to the Open Air Museum where we met up with another tour, and a new guide. We were quite sorry to see her go – she was a lot of fun.

The new tour guide on the other hand was anything but fun. He was a very earnest, small, skinny young man, who focussed obsessively on the religious meaning of each fresco when the majority of people did not have the in-depth knowledge of the bible that he seemed to have. Quite tedious, when I was more interested in the day to day life of the nuns and monks that sheltered there (in their carefully segregated quarters).

This was one of the multi level nunnerys...

and the entrance to some of the chapels...Photographs are now banned inside the different chapels which was annoying – revenue raising for the Museum I guess, so I can’t show what it was like. There was also a queue of people everywhere, and time in each small chapel was limited to keep things moving. All in all this made the whole experience anything but authentic, and I have no more feeling for what the nuns and monks did than I did before arriving. I really would not recommend the experience.

Finally we were dropped back at the hotel, where SS lay on the bed and passed out for an hour. I was starting to feel the tight soreness of my sunburn kicking in, so I read my book and half watched television whilst he slept.

At 6:30pm the temperature started to drop, so we got up, and took some photos of the light fading over Goreme, then headed out to look for the Anatolian Kitchen that Jules had recommended.

After taking some wrong turns we finally found it. We sat, and got a couple of GIANT beers whilst perusing the menus, and noshing on some huge, freshly baked Turkish bread and cheese. YUM. I ate most of the bread, then asked for another. My favourite bread in the world… I would be fat as a pig if I lived in Turkey.

SS had tomato soup to start, and I had lentil soup.

Both were good. Then I had the clay veg pot, which is baked in a whole encased pot, and then arrives at the table, and you are given a giant sword to knock the top of the clay jar off. I got the giggles and couldn’t do it, so the waiter helped me – very nice of him. That was the high point – the veg casserole was a bit bland and tasteless unfortunately – but that was OK, I just ate more bread!! Picking chips of terracotta out of my casserole was possibly not the nicest thing I have ever done. SS had the aubergine bake which was much nicer.

We had the LAST bottle of 2003 Selesan wine – the waiter made a point of telling us, and brought it over to the table in a manner as tho’ we were stealing his first born. Can’t imagine who drank the rest of the stock because it was awful wine – fruity and rank at the same time. Ugh. Total bill was 121TL. A tour group of 18 people turned up halfway through the meal and took over the middle of the restaurant. That kept us amused as they were clearly at the end of the tour with all the little cliques and petty annoyances in evidence, and the usual people who insist on going round the table and taking photos of everyone, since they will all be “LIFELONG FRIENDS!”. Yeah, right.

SS and I walked back up the really steep slope to our bed, (me puffing a bit and suffering a little with our sunburn - mine worse than his of course). We enjoyed the lit up view for a while, then headed to bed.

Horrible night’s sleep – the muezzin seemed to be sitting on the end of our bed, HOLLERING the call to prayer at 4am. Ugh. I tried to get back to sleep but no such luck…

At 8am, I got up to watch all the balloons heading up into the sky. Much nicer to watch them than be on them, and there were so many they almost filled the sky over Goreme with many colours and shapes – just beautiful.

We showered and headed to breakfast – as usual I was confronted by the ubiquitous melon of Turkey – the only fruit they ever seemed to have. So SS was very happy – melon, bread, butter, cheese, tomatoes and olives. I made do with cornflakes, dried apricots, eggs, bread, tomatoes.

We packed, checked out (which involved handing our key over to the self styled “Sultan” himself – ha ha), and took some photographs of the interior of the hotel - it really was very nicely presented and decorated. Then we went out to find our tour for the day.

Today we had a much larger group – an elderly couple originally from the UK, now living in Ontario, together with their daughter and her Turkish husband; two Brazilian women; and 5 US vets (as in veterinary, not veterans!) all travelling together. We headed up to the start of our trek through the Rose Valley. I had been a little nervous about the standard required for the trek, but I realised my knee would probably not be an issue as the elderly Ontarian unpacked his walking stick! Hmmmm. Ohsan the guide gave us an overview of the region as the rubbish men pulled up to the house nearby and emptied their slop bins – not very salubrious really.

In summary, Cappadocia was a centre of Christianity due largely to St Basil settling there and setting up a seminary and a nunnery. St Paul came buzzing through along with other apostles (who wanted a bit of sun I guess) and it was a destination place to combine prayer, pilgrimage and suntanning (I made up the suntanning part). Then the Turks wafted in, and all that was quickly ended as they made it clear that Christianity was a load of old bollocks and they didn’t want these weirdo beardy types (and that was just the nuns) hanging out in their region.

So, we headed off down towards the Rose Valley, and were about to descend to the interesting bit when it became clear that it was not “elderly person with a stick” friendly. So we backtracked and went the higher and safer route along the valley edge, rather than through the valley. You can see the colours in the layers of the rocks ahead of our group which give Rose Valley its name...

It was a friendly group of people and we were all ambling along happily. SS kept diving off to the sides of the track to steal some grapes and raisins. We introduced the others on the tour to their delights, and soon we were all happily marching along, munching on sultanas. The views across to Urgud were stunning, and also over the edge into the valley, where we could see farmers growing grapes in a very freestyle manner - they would probably laugh to see the carefully controlled, strangulated vines in France for example.

At the bottom of the valley, there were the usual stalls with overpriced knick knacks, and pomegranate juice sellers.

I got SS a juice (5TL – highway robbery), but a few others on the group had a fight with the juice seller, claiming he had ripped them off. That was all a little nasty for a while, but eventually we all just kept on walking. We passed a wild olive tree which Ohsan pointed out, and showed us how to eat them - SS enjoyed chewing away on these for a change - they were like chewing gum without flavour really...

We went through the village at the base of the valley, and to the old “apartment block” style of housing which was amazing – apparently people lived here until 1952 when the last were finally moved out due to health concerns. Amazing.

Next we had a brief stop at another area I forget the name of - it was like Disneyland of fairy chimneys - nothing like the real raw areas we had seen on the photography safari the day before, more like a small corral of chimneys that had been herded together, with a paved path leading from one to the other. Weird really... There were bored camels waiting to give rides, and Ohsan was so excited he went to take some personal calls on his mobile!

Back on to the bus, and off to the pottery warehouse. This was the usual hard sell place, with a particularly foxy looking tour guide with double cuffed shirts, and so greasy a manner he practically left a trail behind him like a snail. We were given apple tea and then had to sit through a pottery throwing demonstration, where they made someone from the group have a try – luckily one of the vets was an overenthusiastic American joiner-in type and she leapt at the chance of having a go – phew. Eventually we were let loose in the sales room, where SS amused himself by exclaiming loudly at how expensive everything was. We did buy a plain terracotta candle holder plate for 5TL however, just to be able to leave the salesroom. Outside, as we waited for the rest of the tour group to emerge, we had fun playing with some tiny kittens that were gambolling on the grass in front of the shop. They were lovely little balls of fluff.

Next stop was lunch which was some of the best food we had had so far in Turkey, amazingly. Spicy tomato and chickpea soup, followed by a potato pancake, then a chicken, onion and potato casserole served with rice, followed by a semolina pudding (which we skipped). All served with bread, spiced yoghurt, salsa and spicy bulghur wheat fingers. Really lovely food.

Back in the bus, and off on a LONG drive to Kaymakli to the underground city. My sister had warned me about this place as I do get claustrophobic, so I was not looking forward to it. But surprisingly I was OK with it in the end. Some of that may have been to do with the number of people all crowding around – I didn’t have time to feel claustrophobic. Also, we had one of the many cats of Turkey accompany us down as far as the second level - then he clearly thought "this is not place for a cat!" and headed back up again...

It was very interesting, although I can't imagine what the smell would have been like with thousands of people living down there, and the only light from animal fat torches...

Our group was sandwiched between a slow running group of Spanish people, and right behind us we had one of those classic Japanese tour groups – you know, the ones that RUN everywhere. Every time we stopped, there was a small Japanese person wedged right up against us, legs still peddling, trying to take photos. They are really funny. In the end, we let the Japanese group go by us when we got to a large enough space. They all jogged by, happily taking photos of us as they went.

The low ceilings throughout did mean that SS bumped his head a number of times – he has very little head awareness. So the usual trophy mark of a holiday (a scabbed head) was achieved.

Outside, we ran the gauntlet of the market stalls without buying anything, but our prize was simply waiting by the bus whilst the rest of our tour group loaded up on socks and strange teatowels.

Last official stop was a winery for a quick tasting. Literally, a very quick tasting. Turkish wine is awful – it is incredibly sweet due to the amount of sun. They really should stick to ports and dessert wines I think. The most interesting part of this stop was the vines outside – they had a row each of all the popular types of grapes growing, and it was easy to see the differences when they are all lined up together. There was tempranillo, merlot, chardonnay,cab sav, pinot, as well as more local varietals. Having a taste of the grapes was also quite fascinating.

Across the road from the winery were the old pigeon houses where we took some obligatory photographs after dodging the tour buses that were screaming up and down the busy road.

We stopped at the hill town of Urgup to take photos as the sun set. Our guide had made a point of making clear that tips were welcome, so we also took the opportunity to round the rest of the group up and decided what we would all pay Ohsan for the day. We all agreed on 5TL per couple.

Back to Goreme to pay the balance of the trip to the tour company, (they gave us a credit and apologised for the no-show of our driver in Istanbul the day before) and then in to our transfer car to head back to Kayseri airport.

Easy trip, and we were happy to be heading back – it had been a busy two days. Great organisation however, and I would recommend the tour company.

The airport was a bit confusing, with two security gates on opposite sides, both of which went into the same holding pen before boarding. It was all fine in any event and we seemed to be in the right place. The plane was full of Japanese tourists as usual, I am sure I recognised some from the underground city! Flight took off on time at 9pm, and we landed into Istanbul at 10:05pm. We were fed a lovely on flight meal, including a fresh salad with roast aubergine which was very tasty!

Luckily, this time our driver was there and we were back to the Home Suites room within the hour. Lovely welcome from the staff there. I settled in to nurse my sunburn (the backs of my legs had joined my shiny red face on the second day – of course SS had just turned brown by now!).