Day 16B: 1st day in Cappadocia
Our guide for the two days in Cappadocia was Ali, a young Turkish man who amused us with his attempts to chat up a beautiful Japanese woman in the group.
The day started with a walk through Devrent Valley, which is full of the very strange formations for which Cappadocia is famous. Ali explained their formation: with a volcanic eruption 6 million years ago, basalt rocks were expelled from the volcano along with the lava, ash etc. As wind and water eroded the resulting surface, the basalt, being a rock surface hard enough to withstand the erosion, stayed in place, protecting the softer rock, tufa, below it. So now, the landscape is a series of millions of these cones of tufa, each topped with a basalt rock. In many cases, tufa below the basalt rock has eroded away to such an extent that the basalt has toppled from the top and the tufa cone is now quite pointed. In these cases, the basalt rock which once topped the cone can be seen lying beside or near the cone. Many of the formations take on a recognisable form: a witch, a saddle, a camel etc.
Our bus then drove us to a hill overlooking the famous Monks’ valley, which is full of a different variation of the rock formations, fairy chimneys. These typically have a pointed cone of the harder rock. Because the tufa is soft enough to be quite easily carved away, for thousands of years, from prehistoric times right up until today, the fairy chimneys have served as homes. For several different civilizations: the Hittites, the Persians, the early Christians, they have served as hideouts from the enemy. Even as recently as the 1920s when, after the 1st World War, a political decision was made to send 1 million Greeks living in Turkey back to Greece and bring half a million Turks living in Greece back to Turkey, hundreds of Greek people who did not want to leave Turkey used the rock formations of Cappadocia as their hiding places.
Throughout the whole of Cappadocia, windows and entrances can be seen all the way up the fairy chimneys, indicating that it was used as a dwelling. In some cases, one side of the fairy chimney has eroded away, leaving the inside exposed. Where this has happened, the internal layout of the dwelling, including staircases, walls, shelves etc can clearly be seen.
Being built on volcanic soil, Cappadocia’s main industry, apart from tourism, is agriculture. Here are vineyards for their thriving wine industry, crops of maize, barley, sunflowers etc and fruit trees, the most predominent of which are apricot trees.
The region of Cappadocia, which covers thousands of square kilometres, has a capital city, Kayseri, and several large towns, each with its own special character. Our tour took us then to one of these towns, Avanos, which is renowned for its pottery and beautiful ceramics. Almost everyone in Avanos is involved in pottery in one way or another. We visited one of these potteries. On our arrival we were served apple tea – the sure sign that they will be trying to get us to part with lots of money! After the impressive pottery turning demonstration, we were shown how the design and glaze is applied and fired and then shown into the wonderful “Alladin’s cave’’. Every one of the beautiful pieces was tempting to me, but Roger had stayed in the bus, still very sleepy from his tablet taken to help him sleep on the long bus journey the night before. Had he been with me, I am certain he would have persuaded me to buy a small piece, so I was so proud of myself when I walked out empty handed. (This is not to say of course, that I won’t leave Turkey without some, but it won’t be one of the unique, signed pieces from this particular factory which may have cost me several hundred dollars.)
Our next stop was a cave restaurant – another huge reception place but this time very tastefully decorated. This was our best Turkish meal so far and agiain there were no fewer than four courses.
The final stop for the day, which was fast becoming dark, was Goreme Open Air Museum. Like so many places we have seen, this is a UNESCO World Heritage site, meaning that UNESCO is subsidising its preservation and upkeep in the interest of culture and history. Goreme is one of the places throughout Cappadocia which was a centre of eary Christianity. As early as the 6th century, a community of monks and nuns were living here. There are many churches in this small valley, interspersed with other places of domestic life, such as kitchens, food storages and refrectories where meals would have been eaten in commune with others, all seated at a long table which was also hewn out of the rock.
The 6th century Christians used an ochre-like substance to paint quite simple symbols on the walls and domed ceilings of the cave churches. Those who lived here in the 11th and 12th century, painted wonderful, coloured frescos, covering the earlier, more simple designs. But the frescos are simply superb! They are quite detailed depictions of various characters and stories from the Bible. One of the churches has almost every square inch of wall and ceiling surface covered with these frescos and is quite breathtaking. In others, the frescos have faded or been partly scratched away, but we could still get a sense of how wonderful they would have been. No photos are allowed, so you will just have to image - sorry. Each of the churches at Goreme are very close together, with only thirty or so paces between them. It is intriguing as to why this is so, but considering that there would have been hundreds of monks and nuns here together, and each of the churches would have held only a dozen or so people, maybe this explains the number.
This had been a full day, with lots of tiring walking involved. Robyn and Damien walked into the main street of Urgup to find some tea, but Roger and I were so tired that we just had a shake and went to bed. By 8:30, all four of us were sound asleep!
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