Wednesday, March 26, 2014 Goreme
Last night we weren't hungry after our big tour lunch so we just went to Nazar Borek, a small Cappadocian style diner a few blocks away. A spinach & cheese stuffed spiral pastry (borek) was only 8 lira. Anita had some other grilled pita thing so along with 2 ayran (salty yogurt drinks), the bill came to 22 lira ($11). It was so good we went back tonight and had another great meal, this time for 29 lira ($14.50) total.
As we started off on our hike today, we came across this sign outside a small hotel. Not sure what they're advertising.
We walked about 1 km out of town to the Goreme Open Air Museum, another UNESCO World Heritage site. This outdoor museum was the site of a Christian monastic settlement that was started in the 2nd century AD. There are at least a dozen little churches carved into the rock along with lots of other cave dwellings.
The little churches just look like rock from the outside but inside they're carved into little domed cathedrals. One church in particular, the "Dark Church", was very impressive. It had frescoes (literally "fresh" because they were painted on fresh pigeon egg whites) all around the walls and ceilings that depicted the life of Jesus. Great paintings restored to very good condition.
The tourist pose.
When we left the museum, we walked further up the road and out of the valley onto the plateau above. The manager of our hotel had told us where to turn off the road to get down into the next valley. We passed by some men and women preparing a field. They all said hello to us.
The little road was very steep and narrow. Finally it ended at the valley bottom. Then we took a trail down the narrow valley, walking beside a little stream.
The stream had eroded about a dozen natural tunnels through the rock so that made a good trail.
There were lots of interesting rock formations in the narrow valley.
All along we could see where homes and pigeon nests had been carved out of the narrow valley walls.
Our lunch spot (almonds, apples and water). We saw only a few other hikers all day. We probably walked 10 or 12 km.
Another abandoned cave.
As the valley widened out, the trail became a road again. We found a path leading over the hills from that valley back into the valley of the town of Goreme. We set the camera on a rock and took a last picture of ourselves in this fantastic landscape.
Tomorrow we fly southwest to Antalya on Turkey's Mediterranean coast.
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