Göreme-Kapadokya
So I arrived in Göreme less than rested and headed to find Flintstones Cave Hostel. I went the wrong way, but picked up a cute puppy following me along the way. Every time I took a wrong turn, he followed me, and then back. He abandoned me when he found someone else more interesting… or with food…
The big thing in Göreme is the pensions built into caves. It keeps it quite cool from the hot sun. The landscape of Kapadokya (Cappadocia) is amazing. The fairy chimneys everywhere and the caves are fantastic. The white hills look like sand dunes. I first went to the Göreme Open Air Museum, a collection of Byzantine churches and monasteries built into some of the caves, and with some jaw dropping frescoes and architecture, considering it was being dug from the cave, rather than the typical way of erecting buildings. The “Dark Church” costs an extra 5YTL, but is well worth it. There is only one small opening allowing light through, which kept the frescoes from fading. The colours are amazingly vibrant, unfortunately my camera could not accurately capture the depth of them. When I left, I noticed some caves across the street… completely unattended to, so I set about climbing up, over, around, and through them. It also got me to see some other fantastic cliffs and gorges. Inside some of the caves were even more frescoes. Not much, especially compared to what was in the museum, but the fact that they were just there in this cave I found spectacular. I’m sure there’s plenty of other caves out there the same… the history of this place was fascinating to me, and the feeling that there’s things out there, still untouched by modern man I felt was amazing. Maybe I should have been an archaeologist…
Landscape of Kapadokya:
My cave hostel room:
Frescoes in the Byzantine churches of the Open Air Museum:
As I made my way back, I passed a UFO museum. This seemed a strange thing to be here, of all places. On the other hand, given the lunar-like landscape, maybe not. So I checked it out. It was only 3YTL. Not so much a museum, as a collection of news clippings, stories, and facts of various sightings, reports, and myths. It was also built into a cave, which I came to find out was really part of the owners house. I was actually quite impressed with how cool of a house it was, probably more than the content of the museum itself…
The next day I took a day tour, covering the underground citiy of Derinkuyu, the Ihlara Valley, Selime Monastery, and a few scenic photo-op points. It included a lunch and ended with a demonstration of cutting and polishing onyx and turquoise… which led to their store where we were invited to buy things at a discount. Luckily they weren’t pushy about it. Derinkuyu was cool, with 7 layers of rooms. There’s an air vent you can look up and out of, and you realize how deep below the surface you are. The Ihlara Valley is beautiful, with some nice forests and rivers that we walked through on our way to where we were eating lunch. On the way to the Selime Monastery, we stopped at Yaprakhisar, which they say is where some of the sand people scenes in Star Wars were filmed. Selime was cool to climb around, and there’s some impressive architecture built into the caves.
Derinkuyu underground city:
Ihlara Valley:
Yaprakhisar:
Selime Monastery:
More Kapadokyan scenery:
Tags: Asia, Göreme, Kapadokya, Travel, Turkey
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