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| View from Pigeon Valley |
Today's first activity - hot air balloon ride. Luckily, we were still waking up early and that, being winter, sunrise was much later. A 06:30 pick up was very civilised. We waited in the van for about an hour munching on our provided "breakfast". Unluckily, the winds didn't die down and the conditions were deemed unsuitable and so it was cancelled. Oh well, them's the breaks. We were driven back to our hotel where we had a "real" breakfast before starting our planned itinerary for the day.
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| The only "souvenir" we had from our hot air balloon adventure |
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| The breakfast offerings inside |
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| Breakfast at our cave hotel |
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| So full of sugar I know but the body was craving it! |
The two main big ticket items to tick off the list today was the Kaymakli Underground City and the Goreme open air museum. Both remnants of the early Christian history in the area and both didn't disappoint.
The Kaymakli underground city was originally carved by the Hittites for use as storage sometime around 2000BC (the exact dates differ depending on the source). Additional underground levels were carved out by early Christians fleeing the roman persecution, and used as a temporary place to hide when needed. We were able to wander down to level 4 with some tunnels going down very narrow with low ceilings. So relieved the olds made it out!! The "city" came with its own stables, church, morgue, kitchen and of course a wine press.
Next up was a quintessential Cappadocian tourist stop, the Göreme open air museum. It was essentially a sprawling series of rock cut Christian buildings - chapels, churches, nunnery, monastery and associated chambers, dining halls and the like. We weren't allowed to take photos inside of the wall paintings so I've included an example in the photos below. It was a great way to end our time in Cappadocia.
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| We stopped at Mustafapasa, previously called Sinasos, a village with Greek Orthodox origins before the agreement to "exchange" citizens after the Independence. Original greek door. |
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| St Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church. The town is otherwise pretty dull...so its a "can skip" |
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| A model of the underground city which helped immensely in understanding what we were seeing |
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| Started off nice and spacious. The stables |
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| The church complete with altar |
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| This was the "morgue" where bodies were held temporarily until they could go to the surface to bury their dead |
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| The tunnels got long and narrow... |
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| They used the stone carved out from within the rocks as a door. Roll in and out of place |
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| One of the well lit and wider tunnels |
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| This was for wine storage |
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| The olds needed to rest and stretch their legs! |
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| Examples of pigeon houses |
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| Lunch time! We've been enjoying trying all the different appetisers |
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| Turnip juice and yoghurt drink. Both salty! And the first spicy as well... |
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| Yup. That was the verdict all around |
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| The rest of the food though was amazing! |
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| Ex nunnery |
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| An example of one of the wall paintings inside. Of interest is St Onuphrius on the left, who has the body of woman and the head of an old man |
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| Exploring the cave chapels |
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| There were a lot of doors to go into... |
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| Like an Asian toilet says the kids |
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| Goodbye Cappadocia |
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