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Published: April 7th 2008
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April 3 - 4, 2008
Cappadocia, Turkey.
Wow !! What an interesting place. Cappadocia is roughly in the center of Turkey at some altitude in a hilly and mountainous region. The hills and mountains of this region are composed of a soft sandstone type of material and for thousands of years people have been digging into the hills creating caves to live in and for monasteries and religious sites.
Even today the many of the caves are occupied by local families and many new caves have been created to store vegetables and other products as they provide a near perfect constant cool storage environment. Our hotel, Gamirasu Hotel, is part of one of these old cave settlements and the rooms, restaurant etc. are all caves cut into the hills. Some rooms have been “improved” with additional space added with stone block to allow for bathrooms and proper doors. This is a very neat place to stay with a very good restaurant and very good service from the people who work there. We enjoyed the company of a very nice Canadian /American couple, Linda and David, who are living in New Zealand, that were with us on our 2
days of visits in Cappadocia.
There are literally thousands of caves of various sizes in this area and many were built and occupied by Christian monks starting over a thousand years ago. Some of the artwork and frescos inside these monasteries and churches are truly amazing. There has been a significant amount of damage over the years by invading armies and by other visitors, as well as by the usual forces of nature, but they are now doing some important restoration and refinishing work in many of the sites. These caves are as high as 13 floors all connected by tunnels ( some not too wide or high and a little uncomfortable for anyone with claustrophobia). They contained cooking and eating facilities for up to 300 people as well as places to sleep and do what monks do.
There were literally complete underground cities built in to these hills and the caves provided security from invaders and a relatively comfortable place to live for many thousands of people as well as indoor places for their animals. This is now a world heritage site and much more restoration work is underway.
In addition to the cave experience, the
area is also home to hundreds of “Fairy Chimneys”. Rock formations of various sizes (some very high) that were created when natural erosion left towers with caps of harder material perched on top. (Some are kind of a mushroom shape) In ancient times the locals felt these were the homes of fairies that lived underground and so we have “Fairy Chimneys ". These provide an extraordinary photo opportunity with the multicolored rocks and interesting formations with complete valleys filled with various similar formations.
We also visited a “Caravanseri”, a secure stopping place ( hotel ), for the hundreds of caravans that traveled the Silk Road from the Orient and Asia to Europe. The Cappadocia area was a very important crossroads for several important routes that the camel caravans used to move their goods for trade. The government of the time provided security from robbers along the route, for a tax of course, and this became a favorite route to transport the silk, spices and other goods that were traded.
This was a very interesting two days and a place we would highly recommend to any one visiting this part of the world.
We continued our adventure late
this afternoon with a 5 hour bus trip to the city of Konya on our way towards the south Mediterranean coast of Turkey.
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