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....
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