Blogs from Central Anatolia, Turkey, Middle East - page 40

Arrived in Goreme finally! WOWOW...The caves are really what it looked like in the photos! Pretty COOOOL! and I am living in a cave dorm as well!!! naturally cooled.....heee... I like that=) This town is small and very nice..the view of it is just so special....the rocks, the caves, the environment! So, I walked out and met this taiwanese girl and went to the Open Air Museum with her, it was nice but HOT and SUNNY..... Anyways, these caves were filled with churches! It was when the Christians hid away from getting killed that they built these caves and underground cities....COOOOOL! The Underground city was cool! They have this ventilation system that's amazing!!^^ Anyways, then, went walking along this Ihlara Valley...nice ge....just same old caves again... They went to this Cave Monastary site and wah....its dangerous ... read more

Geo: 40.1716, 27.6345Mom: Today we headed down to Gundogan early in search of a boat for a day trip. According to our local guide, you just show up down at the marina and pick a good looking boat, but we had trouble finding a boat that had a clear indication that it was available for trips. I suspect it's easier to find one in Bodrum, as Bodrum is much larger. Eventually we found a sign on the side of a restaurant advertising two different routes for boat trips, so we went in and inquired. The restaurant guy said to come back at 10 and we would leave at 10:30, so we divided our extra time between the beach and checking email at the internet café. When we arrived back at the restaurant at 9:55, the boat ... read more

December 1 - 3, 2006 Friday We arrived in the Turkish capital of Ankara late in the afternoon. While Istanbul ranks as the historic and cultural hub of Turkey, Ankara was selected to serve as the Turkish capital in 1923 as part of the revolution (Ataturk preferred the isolated, authentically Anatatolian geography in making a symbolic distinction between the new and old regimes). At the close of World War I and the subsequent foundation of the Republic of Turkey Ankara had a population of around 20,000 people, somewhat more tidy than today’s mass of four million. From the bus station, a massive, multi-level complex that just has to be seen to be believed, we decided to take the subway to Kiziray. While we were trying to figure out the fare system for the subway a ... read more

Jamil. Hi it's me Jamil. We are in Alanya, which is a big city in Turkey. They have good food here, like doner kebab and cheeseburgers and the beach is nice because of the blue water. Yesterday we went to Side, a small town on the mediterranean where the beach is not as pretty as Alanya but they have a lot of ruins from the Roman period, about 2000 years ago. They had a hospital, a library and a place were the emperor would sit and the chrıstıans woud look at him and if he put his thumb down, the lions whould come out and eat the chrıstıans, but if he didn't, they would be safe to go home. So it's like if he's in a good mood they are safe and if he's in ... read more

Dopo una notte insonne trascorsa su e giu' da un lussuoso bus turco, mi ritrovo immerso nel paesaggio surreale di questa regione situata nel cuore dell'Anatolia: improvvisamemnte la monotonia dell'altopiano viene interrotta da un susseguirsi di profonde vallate, alcune delle quali simili a dei veri e propri canyon da far-west, mentre altre, piu' indescrivibili, rassomiglianti a distese gommose di dune bianche, oppure a fitte foreste di grossi funghi rocciosi alti come palazzi. Surreale e' la parola appropriata, la verita' e' che questi luoghi sono stati abitati per millenni e tuttora possono rappresentare la migliore soluzione abitativa; prova ne e' il fatto che mi ritrovo dormire in una grotta scavata nella roccia e mi ci ritrovo davvero comodo: fuori, un sole cocente in un cielo sgombro di nuvole porta la temperatura a superare abbondantemente i 30 gradi, ... read more