Day 10-12: Cappadocia, Turkey
Day One: Goreme Open Air Museum
The overnight bus was pretty painful. Don’t get me wrong, the company was pretty good and the bus was impressively comfortable, but coaches just aren’t designed to be slept on and neither of us got much sleep. We arrived at the town of Nevsehir at about 7am and had to change buses to a ‘servis’ which took us to Goreme in Cappadocia where we would be staying. The bus station at Goreme had a great system whereby you gave the information desk the phone number of your hotel and they would arrange a pick up. We were staying at the Dream Cave Guesthouse and after the driver dropped us off and we had stored our luggage, we were invited to join in with the hearty breakfast that had been provided.
Goreme Open Air Museum |
Dark Church, Goreme Open Air Museum |
Our Fairy Chimney |
Day Two: 'The Green Tour’
View over Cappadocia |
Inside the crowded underground city |
Ilhara Canyon, Cappadocia |
Selime Monastery complex |
Day Three: Rose, Red and Pigeon Valleys
Rose Valley with Ellie, the donkey and the old man |
Old rock houses in Cavusin |
Usichar Castle |
I wasn’t quite satisfied that we had seen everything that I wanted, so having spent the morning walking in the Rose and Red valleys we got a taxi to the village of Uchisar to the north of Goreme. The village is famous for its castle, built into a huge rock formation, which is visible across all of Cappadocia. Having been looking at it for the last two days, I decided that I wanted to climb to the top of the castle before walking back down the Pigeon Valley to Goreme, where we would get the bus back to Istanbul. This plan started well, and after paying the 5 TL entrance fee for the castle and climbing to the top, we got perhaps the best possible view of Cappadocia. We managed to avoid tour groups as well, so we had the outcrop to ourselves. We hadn’t felt that we had enough money for the hot air balloon tour, so this felt like a reasonable alternative.
View from the castle |
Pigeon Valley, Cappadocia |
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