Cappodocia

Cappodocia

What an amazing, weird, fascinating place! 

We caught the dolmus (minibus) from Finike to Antalya (2 hours) and then the overnight coach from Antalya, leaving at 22.00hrs and arrived in Goreme at 07.00hrs. Our hotel were due to meet us at the bus stop but at that time in the morning, the town was deserted so we found the tourist information who phoned through for us and the hotel sent a taxi.

Checked into The Castle Cave House Hotel where we thought we had a standard room with balcony and spa bath. The proprietor was very pleased to tell us that we had been upgraded to a cave! As we were only going to be there for two nights and it was a bit of a novelty we went with it. It really was a square cave carved out of the rock.

 Up on the roof of our hotel

 The view from the roof across the town of Goreme

Our "cave"

The whole region was covered in lava millions of years ago and over time the wind and rain have weathered the soft rock into some truly incredible shapes. The history of Cappodocia begins with the arrival of man more than 10,000 years ago. The Christians took shelter in the valleys because of the Arab raids. People have carved houses and churches out of these shapes and some were lived in as recently as the 1960s. Now a lot of the frontages have eroded away so you see a cross section of the houses, tunnels and churches. The whole area is 20,000 square kms.

Goreme Open Air Museum

Views around the site

Pasabaglari and Love Valley

Here you find the tallest of the forms known as "fairy chimneys", many with harder rock on the top forming  a cap.

 Some chimneys are triple coned creating a weird and wonderful landscape

          


 Views around the site

Hmmmm! Dentist?

Cavusin

 For Sale!!! Dave's next project? I think not!

 Rose Valley

Red Valley

Derinkuyu Underground City

There are at least 36 underground cities in the area, all linked by tunnels. Derinkuyu is the largest and 10,000 people hid here to avoid attacks from the Hittites etc. There are eight levels with animals and winery at the top down through living quarters and school rooms to the church at the bottom. These people had converted to Christianity and could worship here to avoid persecution.

 Ihlara Valley

 A beautiful walk along the river.......

 ......exploring churches carved into the valley sides.

Waterfall over the rocks along the valley.

Pigeon Valley

 Pigeon valley, so called because there are lots of dove holes carved into the rocks. Pigeon droppings were a very valuable fertilizer so they were encouraged to stay here!

A very steep scramble up at the head of the valley!