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Published: September 22nd 2008
Hi all, what a wonderful day today was! Took a guided tour to an underground village and to a monastery high on the hillside. Both are in caves that were originally inhabited by the Hittites. The history here is so amazing, its hard to comprehend that people lived here in 3000BC!! The cave city was 7 stories down and we went down down down thru dark passages, so narrow many times that you felt the walls on both sides and low enough that even I had to duck. The people who inhabited these caves must have been part mountain goat and very short! Or they had very hard heads. I managed to make it thru with out a heart attack and without falling. I will post some picts, but they were hard to take to really show the breadth of the place. Kitchen, winery, stable. church and some kind of a round about that we all tried to figure out. They think it was used as a purification place, kind of like a confessory. A Saint would bless it, the people would walk in and back out on the other side and they were purified. It was totally dark, not a
wisp of light and just a few yard in length and in a half circle. One member of our group thought that the children would have been made to run thru it to wear them out for bedtime...not a bad idea! This trip is not for the less hardy souls, very deep underground and lots of stairs up and down and very narrow and some dark spaces. Nice and cool tho!!(not that I am ever too warm or anything!). Then we went to a valley and walked thru the valled of evil...haha. Actually, it was the Valley of Ihula. Beautiful but another strenuous hike. I didn't have any problem here tho, all downhill. One lady fell in the stream we were walking beside as she was telling me about a friend who was to have come on the trip but slipped in her shower! She was sore but ok, and very wet to the knees. She was probably the oldest of the group, from England but lives in Istanbul since 1968! Loves it there. Anyways, we had a wonderful Turkish lunch right beside the river until it started to rain, then we moved inside. Then we traveled to the monastery.
Now that was a very high climb up, but at least it was outside..in the rain tho. Oh well. I was already very sweaty so figured it couldn't hurt. I am so glad I went, it was amazing. There was a church, a kitchen area, a school..the area was used as homes for Greeks who lived there for a time. They too must have had wonderful muscles! No wonder our guide was a very thin young man! After taking lots of picts and wondering all around, I had to get back down. That was almost as bad, since its almost straight up. And it was still raining, but not hard. We also stopped at another small town but since its Ramadan, we didn't get served tea, which they normally do, so we didn't stay long. I met some wonderful people. Now I am sitting here on the terrace drinking Efes, beer! Just had Turkish pizza, which is like our French bread pizza. Made on pida bread and quite delicious. Tomorrow, I plan to wander around the town of Goreme itself and see the outdoor museum here. Then onto Antalya and the Mediterranean tomorrow nite on an overnite bus...buses here are
very nice and plush. Everyone uses them, they serve drinks, snacks and stop for rest stops. Be sure and view my picts of my room here at the Fairy Chimney Inn. Love this place!
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Rosemary
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Wow! A cave hotel???
Not your usual Hilton. How did they get doors on the rooms? Was the bathtub carved out too? Plumbing?? Gotta hear more about this stop...