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Published: April 30th 2013
Cappadocia
I had read so much about the amazing landscape and its cave houses that we had to go here. The place did not disappoint. We took a overnight bus from Antalya. Even after asking many times that we don't want to change in Nevsehir, we got a bus that only went to Nevsehir and had to get down there, wait for at least 30min before finding another bus to go to Gerome. There we wanted to stay at Gerome campsite, but we were still quite tired from the hike, so decided to stay at Dilek which was closer to city center. There were quite a few other campers there and the owner is great and very helpful.
We decided to walk through the Red and Rose Valleys in the morning to reach Cavusin and then probably Avanos further. Avanos has some pottery and also an underground city. The underground city is apparently used to store the pottery and our campsite owner said you can just go there, its free, imagine the valley without pottery and it will be same as the far away valley you will see in green tour paying lot of money. That did make sense
😊 The Rose and Red valleys are quite interesting, full of these cave houses, some very elaborate structures. The walk took couple of hours to next village. By this time we were already quite tired, so we decided to just come back to the campsite, take a break in afternoon and then go to museum in the evening. The museum is somewhat interesting though comes at a somewhat high price of 15TL. It is suppose to be a christian monestary, but we found all so called churches were just full of graves, it was kind of eerie. The campsite owner told us that Goreme Open Air and Zelve Open Air museum are almost the same, so we did just the Gerome one.
Next day we wanted to walk down to Uchisar castle through Pigeon Valley. Thankfully the day was tad bit cloudy. It was a slight relief. The valley is suppose to have lot of Pigeon holes in top of chimneys, and is quite interesting to walk. Towards the end we were also met with a surprise view of the snow capped volcanic mountain that created the valleys. We hiked up to the base of castle with great views
but decided not to go all the way to top. The return was through while and honey valleys. The valleys are interesting, but hike is a bit tricky with many steep downhills where it felt like if you fall you are at the bottom. I managed them all without fall. Now sitting back at our campsite having a light lunch. We take bus to istanbul later today.
Istanbul
We are at the final leg of our trip around western part of Turkey. Yesterday night we took bus from Goreme to Istanbul. After asking many times about "direct" bus, we booked with Nevsehir bus company, but that still led to us having to change in Nevsehir. It was not bad, the bus to Istanbul was next door. They served us a fruit cake and some drinks in the beginning and then it was lights off. The journey was ~11hrs long, but this bus was much less comfortable than the previous bus. I slept much less in this, though that could also be because we were completely exhausted before the previous bus journey. This bus dropped us around 6:30am. It was good time to look for hotel before we meet our
previous host and fetch luggage. I was quite surprised that there were just 2 tower hotels at bus station (autogar), and we could see Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza far away. Nothing else, no small bnbs here. We asked around quite a bit, but no luck. We decided not to make the journey to Sultanhemet area to find something else, and took a room in Elite Hotel. At least it will be super convenient to get to airport from here.
We had 2 more days in Istanbul. First we had to find a hotel though. We picked Elite hotel. Now sitting in hotel, just had a turkish breakfast of bread, cheese, tomate and cucumber. There is a clear drop in quality of food compared to what we were eating out in Lycian area. That was freshly plucked possibly all organic food and this is mass produce.
I read Istanbul book cover to cover and there seems to be nothing to do in the city except for the Sultanhemed area. So we headed there again. Saw the blue mosque. Then headed to Grand Bazar, it was still interesting. From
A busy market street
outside of grand bazarthere we headed to Spice Bazar. We did not want to see any museums and palaces, had enough of them in Europe. The Spice Bazar turned out to be highlight of the day. Its full of shops selling spices and turkish delights. We tasted the delights everywhere and for the first time discovered the real taste of a turkish delight. They are quite expensive though, so we settled on few packets for friends and family. Then we wanted to enquire about public Bosphorous cruise. The short one left in the afternoon, so we missed it 😞.
Next day Rahul was not feeling so great, and there seemed to be nothing really exciting left to see in the city. So we took our time in the hotel, packing and repacking. Then I decided to make a trip to Teksim square on my own. There was a direct bus from Otogar. The bus took more than an hour to reach the square in traffic, but it was interesting to see how pep-mel turkish traffic is somewhat similar to Delhi traffic. On the way I also got glimpses of old city wall and view of the old city from other side of
water. There was some demonstration going on at the square. I walked the Istika street, and then saw the ……. museum. The museum is mildly interesting, its a very small private collection that comes at price of 10TL. There are few paintings, but main attraction is collection of old weights and some painted tiles. The bus back was much faster. We spent rest of the time at the hotel, vasuling our full 120TL worth.
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
Istanbul and Capadoccia
We long to see this lovely part of the world. Hope Rahul is feeling better. You seem to be having a wonderful trip. We lived in Seattle for 7 years. We hope to go to Switzerland in the fall. It would be great to meet you. Looking forward to your next blog.