Blogs from Cappadocia, Central Anatolia, Turkey, Middle East - page 5

Flew into Neveshir, in the Goreme Valley.In this valley lie the greatest concentration of rock cut chapels, monasteries and rock formations dating from the 9th. Century onwards. These formations, built out of volcanic "tuff".....were created 30 million yrs. ago when the erupting volcanoes blanketed the region with this volcanic ash which solidified into an easily eroded and excavated material .... Tuff ......over time was worn away by wind, water and temperature change creating a landscape that has to be seen to believe. The cave dwellings carved out of a single cone of tuff would provide shelter for a whole community. After arising at 4:00 am for our hot air balloon ride at sunrise we were disappointed to find it was too windy to fly. :-((((. We re-scheduled for next day and hired a van and guide ... read more

We went to the open air museum just out side of Göreme. The open air museum is not a museum with ancient artefacts of Turkey it's a lot of cave churches with paintings from all over the country from Sudan and others. We learned a lot about the culture and how hard it was to live in that time. After the museum we went for lunch, the restaurant was one that's in the rock face! We had a really good pottery kabob. We then went for a hike, there were places where I got to run up one side then up the other one. Me and mom played tag with Jill a little bit. We went to an old church school thats not in function any more. We then went and saw a pottery demonstration where ... read more

We got up in the morning to visit the open air museum of Göreme. It is a Unesco site. This region of Turkey is geologically spectacular. The land has a deep layer of volcanic ash from three now inactive volcanos. The ash is cover with layers of basalt lava flow. The result is a fairy tale. Great rivers washed away land to form valleys, but left behind spires and columns and cones of basalt capped soft rock. People over the centuries, carved homes and many churches into the walls of the canyons and into he spires and cones themselves. The open air museum is a small religious (Christian) village carved from the stone and capped with basalt. There are 8 or more churches and other buildings for living. The churches have domes and carved pillars all ... read more

It was a bit black over Bill’s Mother’s when we woke (a black-country saying that means there are black clouds above), with the sun trying to peek through we packed up and took the minutely short journey to our first destination for the day. Woolly says – it was only 2 KM to reach Yazilikaya or Written Rock, situated right next to Hattusa and another UNESCO site. This place would have been a Sanctuary and the Hittite’s would have held their New Year festivals here although their New Year was in the spring, I wonder if they had fireworks and lots of alcohol? Things were very different then Woolly and no they wouldn’t have sung Auld Lang Sine either before you ask. It was in use from at least the late 16th century BC, but most ... read more

Geo: 38.9833, 35.1907"Human beings are discourse. That flowing moves through you whether you say anything or not. Everything that happens is filled with pleasure and warmth because of the delight of the discourse that's always going on." Discourse 53These words are Sohbet with means something like "mystical conversation on mystical subjects. Celaleddin Rumi, known more commonly simply as Rumi, was a Sufi mystic who founded the Mevlevi order - better known as the Whirling Dervishes.When offered the opportu... read more