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Published: June 12th 2010
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Goreme is such a sweet place. Largely in existence for tourists wanting a good base from which to explore Cappadoccia, it still retains its village feel. Development of the area has been sympathetic to is surrounds, and boasts no ugly construction or shopping malls (rather a miracle as I don't think there is local authority enforcing this). During the day old men can be found drinking 'cay' (tea) outside cafes and playing backgammon, cards or rummy. At dusk, women gather together outside the doors of each others houses to exchange stories and keep an eye on the kids. Couples with the horse drawn carts plod through the streets and children run around until late at night.
We stayed in a 'pension', the Turkish name for a simple place that provides bed and food. Our place was much more than just a bed and food, we also had a swimming pool and an extensive backyard with little open air huts full of rugs and cushions. We had breakfast in the huts every morning and the temptation to continue lazing around was quite strong! From the huts we could lovely views of all the surrounding limestone rock formations. It was such a
Open Air Huts
This was our breakfast spot every morning....I want one peaceful, relaxing spot that Phoebe and I even invented a song (with accompanying dance) called 'Stay Another Day in Goreme', ('day' rhymes with 'Goreme') which we sung when facing the prospect of having to leave Goreme. Initially we had booked two nights in Goreme, but ended up staying five....clearly the song and dance routine was very convincing.
We were told that there were some great walks nearby and that the two main walks would take one day each. We optimistically set out to reach the Fairy Chimneys, a famous rock formation resembling something like little fairy houses, on a 3 - 4 hour (supposedly!) round trip. After doing what is beginning to be fairly typical of us nowadays, we took every single detour and explored every single side attraction, whether it be a good view, an old cave house or even just taking our time to have a look at an insect/flower/horse that happened to catch our eye. The area of Cappadoccia, famous for it's fantastic scenery and rock formations (a picture tells a thousand words in this case) and the particular area we were walking through was World Heritage listed, so as a result all initial inhabitants have
Typical Stunning Landscape
Remember the "easily startled" Sand People from the first Star Wars? Yeah, they actually lived in Cappadoccia. It was filmed in this region! I was afraid they might return....and in greater numbers. vacated and left behind their houses that they carved out of rock (a bit reminiscent of Petra). The houses were pretty comprehensive and usually contained bedrooms, kitchens and had particularly good systems for lighting and cross-ventilation. I was impressed!
Four hours later we were still only about 2/3 of the way to the Fairy Chimneys and totally exhausted. We reached an old Byzantine Church (with beautiful original paintings) and chatted with the caretaker while he made us some freshly squeezed orange juice. He had a cute little hide-out in one of the caves where he kept some goods for selling and also some rugs and cushions to relax on. He told us he doesn't need to lock up at night as often people might come along, sleep in the cave and leave some money for whatever they might have taken. He also told us about winters in Cappadoccia when there are no tourists and places like his cave and the nearby church become unreachable by foot due to snow. He said he loved his quiet life and shuddered when he recalled his time spent in the army which is compulsory in Turkey. He told us that the army was
Wild Flowers
Turkey has some fantastic wild flowers that grow like weeds! dangerous and the casualty and death rate was quite high for the Turkish army - currently there are plenty posted in Afghanistan. Eerily enough, it was the following day that 6 Turkish soldiers were killed by PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) in Turkey's east. To add to the country's mourning, that same day Turkish activist had been killed and wounded aboard an aid flotilla headed for the Gaza Strip. These two events caused a lot of unrest and and general feelings of anger in Turkey and we started to survey events in Istanbul and elsewhere, and kept a closer eye on the news.
After our orange juice break in the cave, we pushed on and found the next village. Reaching the Fairy Chimneys was starting to look a bit unrealistic as we were tired and the sun was setting so we headed back to Goreme via a dirt track. One of the amazing things about Cappadoccia is that the valleys are still farmed by villagers, who it seems, each have little plots of land that they tend every day. I thought possibly that this was a remnant of when the area was listed as World Heritage, and possibly locals were
Inside Hacli Cave Church
The Painting on the Church walls date to the 9th century, and have been well preserved due to the condition of the rock underneath. This church was used as a defensive spot against Arab Raiders. instructed to vacate but were still allowed to keep their farming land. On our walk we came across many of these little plots, with old Turkish women struggling over the weeds. It seems Turkish women all have a 'uniform' of sorts which I did not see one old lady deviate from once. It includes the headscarf, a woolen vest and baggy floral print pants. Not to mention that they are all physically very similar, almost exactly the same height, with exactly the same rotundness! Once while walking down the street we had three Turkish women walking in formation towards us. It was like being approached by an army, they were all identical and all had the same plodding determination. I quickly hopped out of the way. I wished I could have taken a photo but never quite worked up the courage.
The next day our bodies ached in protest at more walking and, having not reached the Fairy Chimneys the day before we thought the best thing to do would be hire a car. This would also enable us to see a few other spots not within walking range and we were excited at the prospect of a little
Nick Admiring the View
This was just a bit further up from Hacli Church bit more flexibility and adventure.
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Grangi
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lucky you
This part of your journey sounds almost magical. Perhaps you should offer some of your stories to the travel section of a Newspaper. This one is quite evocative. You will be in the UK soon and leaving all that wonderous scenery behind you.Happy travelling!Love Grangi and Grandpa Tom