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Published: January 6th 2013
Well, we want to post a quick update as we start our last week. This past week has been amazing! Has it really only been a week since we left beautiful Istanbul??
We arrived in Cappadocia mid-day New Year’s Eve. We booked our hotel Kelebek, another great find off the internet. It included airport pickup. How we love when we walk out of the airport and someone is waiting for us with a little sign with our names on it. No hassles just get in and they take you straight to your hotel. Such Luxury!
This area is known for its cave dwellings, unique rock formations, and ancient ruins. A highlight of our time in Goreme was the hot air balloon ride on New Years morning. We thought it was a great way to begin the New Year. And it was fantastic!! There were 20 of us in the balloon basket. It was amazingly smooth and quiet as we floated above the incredible terrain. There were 60 balloons all up at the same time. Our pilot was fantastic as we would come within 20 feet of some of the fairy chimneys as they are called, the thin
spires of rock, erosion formed. We had a beautiful sunrise and very clear morning. An hour and 20 minutes later we touched down and enjoyed the customary glass of champagne.
Many of the cave dwellings in the town of Goreme where we stayed, have been turned into hotels. Although, wonderful in the summer, quite cold to stay in during the winter. We chose to stay in the stone house rooms, with central heat.
There was a central bar/sitting room area, which was a great area to meet the other guests. Also, all of their excursions were guests of the hotel, so we ended up meeting many of the people that were staying there. This included an Irish family with their 4 sons, an Australian mother and son, a woman from San Francisco, now working in Geneva as a Korean translator of patents, and a woman from WA DC who works for the Appropriations Committee and was constantly within email contact due to the fiscal cliff! As she said, this was suppose to be all settled by now! She also knew our Senator Simpson and told us to have him stop harping about the EPA.
She was quite a character. We are always amazed at the camaraderie of travelers. We took a full day tour of the area ruins. At lunch as the conversation flowed continually, it felt like the scene from the movie, The Way.
One day we walked among the rocks that had been carved out to house pigeon coops, which the locals collected the guano and used for fertilizers. There were lots of trails throughout the valley and at one point we needed the assistance of a local farmer to show us a very narrow tunnel to get across the deep canyon.
Another day we took a tour of the surrounding countryside, that included stops in a village where in 1924, they had a swap between the Greeks who were living here forced to go back to Greece, and the Turks who had been living in Greece repatriated. To this day, the Turks still harbor hard feelings to the Greeks. Considering there other neighbors - Syria, Iraq, Iran, and a couple Stans, the Greeks are probably their least problem!
The tour also included an underground city, that was 180 ft below the surface
with about 3-4 miles of tunnels and living space. It was constructed during the 6th & 7th century for the Christians to escape the Persian and Arabic armies.
On Thurs we said goodbye to Cappadocia and flew to Antalya, a city in south central Turkey on the Mediterranan. Beautiful sunny days and about 15 degrees warmer. They have an excellent museum where we struggled to learn 2500 years of history in @ 4 hrs. An excellent presentation and fortunately for us an audio recorder in English to help us.
We took a day tour to the ancient city of Perge where many of the items we saw in the museum originated. A definite benefit of off season travel as we were the only ones there. Then on to Side the beach town, finishing up in Aspendos with its famous Roman theatre.
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Vicki
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A big thank you
Thanks so much for sharing your travels with so many. Your pictures and commentaries are wonderful. I could feel the cold air on my face in the balloon and sense the antiquity of the ruins. I appreciate your sense of adventure and talents. Love and peace