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Published: August 7th 2007
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We are back in the UK again now, back to the cold! But back to a decent hot shower as well. Turkey was good, we'd love to go back again and look round properly. This trip all we had time to see was Cappadocia and Istanbul.
We stayed in Goreme, Cappadocia, in a room that was part real cave and part concrete cave. The area is known for its weird and wonderful rock formations, cave houses, and some underground cities. We tried to see a bit of everything. The first day there we took a bus tour of the highlights, getting a feel for the surroundings. We saw plenty of rock formations, a huge underground city 8 levels deep, a well preserved caravanserai, and the local pottery. The tour ended at the pottery, we were given a demonstration then left to wander round the shop, but for a change there was no hard sell. The underground city was pretty amazing. even though the rock is reasonably soft, it must have taken generations of carve all those rooms and passageways out. There were fresh air vents running down all eight levels, tunnels to circulate the smoke from the kitchen round to
try and heat other rooms, a winery, a schoolroom, all sorts.
Our second day in Goreme, we just wandered round the surrounding valleys ourselves. We found a lot of old rock dwellings and several churches. We had a look in a few (some you have to pay to see inside), at the paintings, carved ceilings, tombs...
It got pretty cold while we were there, then seemed to warm up a bit again. Istanbul got warmer each day we were there. When we left it was getting really pleasant again, then we had to come to the cold here!
We stayed in the 'heart' of old Istanbul, around the Sultanahmet area, near the Blue Mosque and Aya Sofya. We had a look round both these places, they are quite run down, the outsides need a couple of coats of paint. The inside of the Aya Sofya is slowly being restored, both the Christian and the Muslim parts. We had a look round the underground cisterns, a Byzantine
water cisterns made from huge numbers of mismatched, pilfered from elsewhere Roman columns. In many ways it was much more interesting than either of the mosques. A couple of the columns
had Medussa heads holding them up. We had a wander round the souks, the
Egyptian spice market, a mosaic museum, the Topkapi palace, didnt take a boat ride on the Bosphorus (something for next time!)
Despite being so close to the Blue Mosque and several smaller ones, we still managed to sleep through the morning call to prayer. We kinda got used to it, and it helps that it was chilly and we kept the window closed. We had a great view from the roof of the hostel, Blue Mosque, Aya Sofya, the Bosphorus and out to the Sea of Marmara. We had a couple of pleasant evenings drinking a beer and watching the ships pass by.
Thats all from us for this trip, only two more weeks to go until we leave for Africa though! Thanks for all your mails while we were away, its always good to hear whats going on in the real world.
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