top 10 experiences in Cappadocia (part 2)

continuing from my previous post....

#5 - horseback riding through the valleys around Göreme.  each one has its own name (we visited rose, red, pigeon and love valleys via horseback) and the name corresponds to the valley's unique landscape.  we had originally planned to cover some of the same area by foot - hiking in these valleys seemed like a fun way to spend an afternoon, but travelling by horseback was a much more interesting experience (how often do you get to feel like you are a cowboy in an old western?!) AND we covered a whole lot more ground than we could've on foot!  riding a horse (my first time ever!) was so much fun, but that was probably more to do with the docile nature of my particular horse; Lisa's horse was a lot more independent and free-spirited, she would linger and drop behind, only to catch up to the rest of the group by trotting (and then repeat the cycle).  unfortunately, Lisa had some more bad luck too; when we were stopping for our mid-ride break in "love valley", she got injured because her horse ran her into an errant tree!  even in spite of all that, this experience made it onto both of our top 10 lists - it was just a wonderful way to see the area (it's also very "authentic" too - the first settlers of Cappadocia were the Hittites, who were well-known for their horses.  we ran into a few people touring by ATVs; come on, the Hittites probably never used those!).  lastly, in the ultimate coincidence, we later ran into the two other girls in our horseback group a few days later - in Istanbul!  (this was a very good coincidence since I'd wanted to send them some horseback riding pictures, but had had no way of contacting them before that!)

#4 - hiking in the Ihlara Valley.  on our 2nd day, Lisa and I joined a day trip tour of the Ihlara Valley, in the southwestern part of Cappadocia; the 'I' in Ihlara is *not* the more common Turkish 'İ', so Ihlara is pronounced something like "ugh-lara".  the main advantages of going with a tour group are 1. not having to deal with any of the travel arrangements (we just happily rested on the hour drive out and back from Ihlara Valley) and 2. having a knowledgable (and in our case, funny too!) guide to curate the parts of the valley we visited and to tell us about what we are seeing.  I really liked the other 4 people in our tour group too; everyone was really nice and since we have this shared interest in travelling, there was a lot to chat about during the 7km hiking portion of the day.  the valley itself was gorgeous (as might well be expected), all red rocks and poplar trees; it was so interesting to imagine a time when the cave homes and churches in the valley were inhabited by up to 1000 people!  thanks to Gonca (our tour guide), this was also the day when I learned what a "dovecote" is!  the Cappadocia area is covered by them; so many of the rock homes and churches we would see have these little squares niches dug into the walls.  these were for pigeons to rest and nest in since, back then, pigeons weren't just a nuisance but they were very useful as sources of fertilizer (pigeon droppings) and to make/preserve frescos (egg shells used for plaster and egg whites used to coat the completed frescos).  I also happen to think dovecotes make the rock homes/churches LOOK so much more interesting by adding that extra bit of texture :)  the painted cave (below) is an example of one fresco in one of the churches we visited - this was on the ceiling of a church, so it was subjected to less vandalism than the poor frescoes on the walls.  this is completely unpreserved though, so the color that is remaining is all original - it seems like the pigeon egg white coating was pretty effective since the fresco still remains relatively colorful after 1000 years!  (i think the lack of sun within the caves helps too :)).  another tidbit gleaned from Gonca:  this hand symbol (with the ring finger touching the thumb) represented the trinity; it's a little funny how things cycle around over time, because that is ALSO the hand symbol of our high school mascot (the sundevils!).

#3 - Selime Monastery.  this is probably my favorite of all the sites that we visited in Cappadocia!  we visited the Selime Monastery as part of the same day tour - after hiking the Ihlara Valley hike and having lunch.  the only downside was that we simply did not have enough time here (this is the disadvantage of joining a tour group I suppose, although without them, we probably wouldn't have even made it out to Selime!); there were large portions of the monastery that we didn't get to look at, but I loved the parts that we DID see.  there were so many nooks and crannies (and tunnels connecting them) to explore and the churches in this monastic complex (we only saw two) had some of the most elaborate shapes of all the rock church we saw, like the mountain had been carved to form big arches and rows of columns.  it definitely didn't hurt that the monastery is set on the top of a mountain, giving you the feeling of floating above the Ihlara Valley, nor did it hurt that the weather was just simply perfect during our visit.  definitely on my list of places to go back to "some day" :)

#2 - renting a car, driving around Cappadocia and exploring areas on our own - this was a new experience for both Lisa and I (driving in a foreign country), one that became even more interesting when the car we rented turned out to be a stick shift!  luckily, we both know how to drive non-automatic cars (I to a lesser extent, although I actually drove more time-wise!).  there were two stops where I felt that we were being especially independent and resourceful with our very limited Turkish (is it cheating to reference *two* experiences as part of one top 10 item?  oh well!).  in Mustafapasa, a smaller Greek village, we actually found someone to open up the locked-up church just for us - we had the place all to ourselves!

also, we found the Keşlik Monastery (tucked away from the main road) by asking some other Turkish drivers which way to go.  this was a much more peaceful monastery to visit; it was easier to imagine active monastic life "happening" there (it felt more contemplative simply because there were only a few other visitors).  there were definitely stressful moments to driving on our own too (not the least of which when we were caught in a traffic jam with a big herd of sheep!) but it was yet another different but enjoyable way to see the area.

#1 - early morning hot air balloon ride over Cappadocia!  I'd like to let this picture do most of the talking here; there's not much more to add except that we left our hotel at 5:30AM and it was by far the most expensive activity we did during our entire trip, but IT WAS WORTH IT (on both counts).  being one of 100s of hot air balloons sharing the early morning skies was a surreal experience :)

top 10 experiences in Cappadocia (part 1)

hi again!  I'm going to pick back up on blogging about our trip in Turkey, but for the record, my physical person is actually back in the states now (just arrived in Seattle about 2 hours ago :)).  

the next leg of our trip (after Ephesus) was 3 action packed days in the Cappadocia region.  we did so much in that short amount of time; I've come up with a sort of "top 10" list to share the best of what we did and saw.  I ♥ CAPPADOCIA and here is why....

# 10 - living in a cave!  the Cappadocia area is known for their unique rock formations - made out of this (relatively) soft volcanic rock.  the level of "softness" was perfect as it was solid, but still allowed people to carve homes (and also in the past, many many churches) into the rock.  our hotel - and I realized after arriving, almost all hotels in the area! - was styled as a "cave hotel"; the rooms were built into the rock, although reinforced with square bricks and fitted up with modern electricity and plumbing.  we stayed at the Sultan Cave Suites (a sister hotel of the highly recommended Kelebek Cave Suites) and really enjoyed the stay!  even though it was hot during the day and cool in the evenings, the room remained a nice "medium" temperature throughout.

# 9 - Uçhisar Castle.  on our 3rd day, Lisa and I rented a car and drove around Cappadocia on our own (more on that later on in the list too :)).  near the end of the day, we were driving back towards our home base of Göreme.  we'd originally been planning to take in a few viewpoints on the way back, but during the drive, it actually began to rain (quite heavily too!).  at that point, given the weather and the fact that we'd had a pretty long day already, we were planning to head straight back.  the drive required us to go through the village of Uçhisar (the name literally means "upper castle" and this is the highest point in the region) - miraculously and suddenly, the weather cleared up *just before* we pulled into Uçhisar.  we were really excited (almost giddy) as we walked up to the castle; the castle itself (from the outside) is so beautiful.  and just a short climb away, the panoramic view from the top is amazing too.  also, since the weather had just been raining, we basically had the castle entirely to ourselves (which I normally love).  in this case, it turned out to be a little TOO empty; we had somewhat of a bad experience after I ran into someone I thought was a castle guard but turned out to be giving us a free introduction to the castle in hopes of (I think) trying to sell us some stuff in the village afterwards.  that left a slightly sour taste, but from these pictures, I think you can see why Uçhisar Castle still makes the top 10!

#8 - Soğanli Valley.  this was the furthest stop on our driving day - the landscape in this (southeast) area of Cappadocia is predominantly wide valleys surrounded by these large "table top" plateaus and had quite a different "look" than the other places we'd been visiting.  getting to the valley involved driving across one of these table top plateaus - it was an incredible feeling of being on top of the world (if the world really was flat, as they'd though in the old days).  Soğanli Valley (the 'ğ' is silent, so this sounds almost like "swanly valley") is a bit off of the typical tourist track, so this park was pleasantly uncrowded too.  we arrived a little later than planned, so were not able to hike through the entire park; walking the the entire park takes about 2 hours and includes visiting 6 churches (we only saw 1!) and an abandoned village (which we did see).  I'd like to spend more time here "next time" I visit Turkey; ideally on a day with slightly better (less cloudy) weather too!  during the parts of the afternoon that were cloudy, the abandoned rock churches had a bit of a gloomy feeling.

#7 - Göreme Open Air Museum.  this is a UNESCO World Heritage site and a must-see for any Cappadocian visitor; we went during our first afternoon in Cappadocia.  the open air museum is a large monastic community carved into a group of rocks; at the height of the Christian era in Cappadocia (from the 10-12th centuries), it seems like 100s of people lived and studied in this compound.  it's cool because you can visit the churches (there must be 10 churches/chapels right next to one another, and all of varying sizes and styles) AND see remnants of how the monks (?) lived too: kitchens, refectories (these are like VERY LARGE dining rooms with table and benches carved from the rock too), and larders (for food storage).  this park is also particularly noteworthy because it's one of the few places in Cappadocia where the beautiful 1000+ year old frescoes have been restored and are actively protected (the frescoes in most of the other churches we visited were woefully in disrepair and usually covered with graffiti - if you can believe it!).  we spent a fun first afternoon climbing in and out of rock caves (some living quarters and some churches) and finding cute little nooks to take photos; I think this is where we discovered a shared love of "framing" photos with uniquely shaped rocks!  the ONLY downsides to the Open Air Museum were the crowds (the smaller stone churches were almost impossible to visit when we first arrived as one tour group after another filled them entirely to capacity!) and the rules prohibiting photos inside (even without flash).  in particular, I would have loved to take photos of the Dark Church - the church's name comes from the fact that there are no windows, but yet, every inch of the walls and ceilings are covered with the most beautiful, detailed and vibrant fresco paintings (I imagine they must have been painted entirely by candlelight!).  the frescoes depict scenes from the life of Jesus and were used for instructional purposes - my understanding is that students here and elsewhere around the turn of the 1st millennium were taught the Bible using these images (rather than through the text itself).  I think that makes sense, given that this is all pre-Gutenberg and the Bible itself must not have been widely available yet.  I really wish I could share the frescoes with you - creating them was definitely a labor of love (not to mention a demonstration of talent!).

#6 - Dinner at Seten.  it was hard to pick one favorite meal from this leg of the trip, since the food we had (not just in Cappadocia, but everywhere in Turkey) was all pretty darn good, but this dinner at Seten Anatolian Cuisine stood out for a few reasons - 1. we were actually reeeally hungry!  it was a later dinner (post-horseback riding) and we'd also skipped lunch that day (having had a late breakfast when we arrived in the morning), so our stomachs were ready by the time dinner came around.  I think we may have even been like 10-15 minutes early for our reservation :)  2. the food was all really good - and it was different than the more "standard" Turkish fare we'd been eating.  there was a lot of bulghur (it featured in almost all of the dishes we ordered!) and as it turns out, I guess I like bulghur :)  3. the dessert deserves its own shout out - in a country full of sweets (baklava in particular), this dessert was memorably good!  4. the restaurant was at our hotel, so there was no cold post-dinner climb uphill (our hotel was at the top of a moderately steep hill).  since this was the first night there, I'm not sure we fully appreciated how nice it was to stay full, cozy and warm while we easily meandered upstairs to our room, but in retrospect that was a huge plus!

to be continued.... 

Whirl through Ephesus (and around)

hi again!  I haven’t been able to post as often as I’d hoped since we’ve been on the move quite a bit the last few days – we did most of our intra-Turkey travel in the last 48 hours or so; even though the trip is only halfway through, most of our “transporting” is done.  we’ve been joking that we’re going to try every form of transportation available during our stay, but I can’t really think of many that we aren’t using (besides the obvious ones like submarine or rocket of course).  from Istanbul to the Ephesus area, we rode on a ferry, two trains, a metro and three taxis; from Ephesus to Göreme, a whooping four buses (one of which was an overnight charter bus).  our last leg will be a simple flight back to Istanbul (so conventional!), but while we are here, we are planning to take a hot air balloon ride too (so exciting!).  oh, I also rode a horse today!  (more on that later....)

for today’s post, I wanted to focus on our time in the Ephesus area – the ruins of the city of Ephesus were the primary draw to this part of Turkey, but since we were in the area, we also visited nearby Selçuk and Şirince.  It really was a whirlwind trip though; we were only “on the ground” (although we technically never really left the ground!) for less than 24 hours!

short language lesson/side note:  the funny Ş (with a hook underneath it) is pronounced “sh”; likewise, ç is pronounced “ch”.  also, more surprisingly (for me), the ‘c’ in Turkish is pronounced like an English ‘j’, and a ‘j’ is pronounced like an ‘s’.  in case you are wondering though, the Turkish ‘s’ remains similar to an English ‘s’ :)  all that to say, when we first started this journey and were asking for directions to either Selçuk (“sell chuck”) or Şirince (“syrin-ge”), no one knew what we were talking about!

ŞIRINCE
to be honest, we didn’t really spend much time in the actual village of Şirince – most of my interaction was from overlooking this village from our hotel at the top of the hill behind the village, but let me tell you, that was one great experience!

after our epic day of travelling, I would’ve been happy to be almost anywhere, but the place we stayed (the Nişanyan)  was such a delightful place – a perfect place for us to make our temporary “home”.  our room was comfortable and the decor throughout the place had such cute little details (there was a library!  and a little reading “nook” with an old-fashioned sewing machine doubling as an end table!).  the first photo is Lisa’s happy reaction to some of the little tidbits in our room.

the second photo is of us at dinner; yes, it was taken in the reflection of the window we were sitting next to!  it was already a little late by the time we got there, so it was great to have dinner on site at the hotel’s restaurant (which is a deservedly top-rated restaurant in its own right too).  the food was really yummy; my favorite was the “mommy style” (as per the menu!) beef stew, cooked in a clay pot.  our only regret was forgetting to pre-order the chocolate soufflé – by the time we got to dessert, they kitchen had stopped making those… and we just had to keep suffering the rich chocolate smell coming from our neighbors’ tables :)

we rose early the next morning to have a chance to walk the grounds of the inn prior to getting breakfast and heading on our sightseeing way – the hotel has an amazing view of the Şirince village; I actually think it’s more “idyllic” from this vantage point than it was down in the village itself (oh how reality can disappoint sometimes!).  the last photo is the awesome breakfast spread, served on a terrace of course, that just sealed the deal – we’re officially in love with this place!

I didn’t really mean for this to be a hotel advertisement, but just to say, it was a nice respite in the midst of a ton of travelling!

EPHESUS

now onto the main event – visiting the ruins of Ephesus!  there was so much to see that I can’t comment on it all (although I probably will end up trying to).  a few things that I learned from the three-ish hours that we spent here:

• I like ruins a lot more than Lisa does. that’s probably more a statement of how much I like ruins (a lot!) rather than any strong ruin hatred on her part; I think in an alternate lifetime, I could be a pretty happy archaeologist. this is expressed most clearly in the photos as you track them over time – in spite of the heat and the at-time-overwhelming crowds, I seem to just keep picking up more energy and joy as the visit went on. (it was pretty hot though!)
• trying to time your visit to “beat the crowd” is almost an art form! we were originally trying to get to the ruins early (as the guidebooks suggest) to avoid the crowds; the delicious breakfast slightly waylaid us, but we got there not too long after it opened and it was already packed. I think the word had gotten out that “early” was the way to go! however, about two-thirds of the way through our visit, we turned around to head back to the entry gate we started at (to catch our bus as well as to visit the rumored museum shop). the museum shop ended up being non-existent, but that didn't matter – somehow, the ruins had completely emptied out by the time we made our return trip! it was like a totally different place! we took our time heading back and snapped some of our nicer photos during this much more peaceful walk.
• Ephesus was a pretty huge and metropolitan city in its time!  I guess I usually think of the church of Ephesus (like from the Bible) rather than this major city of political and economic importance across multiple empires – for example, did you know it was once the Roman capital of Asia and one of the biggest cities in the world?  it’s pretty interesting that most of this huge city sits in well-visited and well-preserved ruins, but through the bible, pieces of the modest church of Ephesus still remain relevant to (parts of) the modern world.
• people get remembered for the most random things – case in point:  the third photo is a statue of a woman named Scholastica, who helped finance a restoration of the public bath house (this restoration then included a statue of herself near the entrance).  I’m sure she did a lot of other stuff in her lifetime, but that statue remains today and is visited by hoards of people every day; in a way, her name goes down in history for having done this one nice thing for this one bath house.

all in all, it was such a great site to visit – highly recommended!

SELCUK AND AROUND
with our few remaining hours in the area, we spent some time in the nearby "main town" of Selçuk.  we had a quick lunch and visited two places in town:  (1) St. John's Basilica - haha the first photo is from there and captures Lisa's surprise to see that the basilica ALSO lies in ruins.  "more ruins?!" :)  it was a pretty special place though mostly because this is where John (the apostle) was buried!  his grave is beneath the plaque in the third photo - that location used to be where the altar was located when the basilica was still standing.  one other interesting thing that happened while we were here...  we were filmed for a Turkish tourism video!  they took some video footage of us walking around and taking photos; i'm sure fame and fortune is soon to follow....  (2) the Temple of Artemis - to round out this ruin-ous day, except this is a site that Lis picked to see.  it's like a bite-sized amount of ruins, really just one column remaining out of the formerly *127* columns of this temple.  in its heyday, this temple was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world (no shabby credentials!), but all that remains today is this lone column with a HUGE bird nest atop it.  the last picture is just noteworthy because my outfit that day (in various shades of khaki, cream and brown) really just blended in so well with all the ruins we visited - i'm basically just an extension of the column at this point :)

phew - what a marathon post!  thanks for reading and good night!