Thursday and Friday were spent on a trip to the region known as Cappadocia about three hours southeast of Ankara. This area is surrounded by several now extinct volcanoes and these mountains spewed lava over the entire landscape in prehistoric times. This has left the region with an abundance of tufa, a lava rock that is easy to carve into. The residents of the area over the many years since then have abundantly used this property to make homes, churches, storerooms and stables. The tufa has also eroded into bizarre but beautiful tower shapes usually called "fairy chimneys" because of their resemblance to fanciful chimneys (and other shapes, as we shall see).
The travelers were Alice, Randy, Justin, Claudio Arbil and his lovely wife Simonetta, who was visiting from Rome. In perfect spring weather, we set off with our first stop the town of Hacibektas, not really in Cappadocia. This town is known as the center of the works of Haci Bektas Vali, a contemporary of the more famous Rumi, of Konya and Mevlana/Whirling Dervish fame. Now, along with Haci Bektas Vali's tomb, the complex houses a museum, a mosque, a garden and several other tombs. This is also a center of the Ahi form of Islam, which is (as we understand it) more liberal and flexible than other Muslim variants.
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| A statue of the great man Haci Bektas Veli |
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| Entrance to the museum and tomb complex |
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| Inside the courtyard - this is the mosque entrance |
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| The museum showing the huge kitchen area |
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| Detail of the mosque ceiling |
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| Detail of one of the mosque's stained glass windows |
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| The wooden ceiling in the main meeting hall - with nine levels - the nine levels to heaven |
After viewing the complex, we bought some souvenirs and ate very good pide at a small restaurant specializing in this Turkish version of pizza. The museum sees a fair number of tourists (and pilgrims), but they are invariably Turkish and the town has a nice unspoilt atmosphere.
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| The peaceful cemetery in the complex |
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| The gorgeous ceiling in one of the tomb areas - outside was a sacred old mulberry tree (which frankly looked dead) |
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| Entrance to the building housing the tomb of Haci Bektas Veli |
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| A view of the Koran (?) on display |
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| The amazing painted ceilings of the tomb building |
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| A view of the large room of the tomb building - Haci Bektas's tomb room is off to the right |
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| Ceiling detail of Haci Bektas's tomb room |
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| The 14 stick ceremonial candlelabra |
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| We were eating upstairs at the pide place (being their only customers) and the guy below is rolling out our pide |
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| Justin and Simonetta enjoy salad and bread pre-pide |
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| Alice's mushroom and cheese pide |
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| Justin buying souvenirs from the numerous and friendly vendors along the main street |
A drive further south brought us to the borders of Cappadocia and the town of Gulsehir. Here is a restored 13th century church, St. John. This is an interesting church as the bottom level (ground level) is quite plain but upstairs (via a spiral staircase) are wonderful frescoes, recently restored. Also, unlike the churches in the more famous areas of Cappadocia (like Goreme) St. John is quite unvisited. We had the church and surrounding grounds to ourselves (except for the caretaker).
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| Entrance to the recently restored St. John Church |
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| The plain exterior |
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| The modestly decorated ground floor of the church |
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| Part of the beautiful frescoed upstairs - this with the Saints George and Theodore |
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| More of the frescoes |
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| The donor of the frescoes on left with her hands on her two children |
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| The frescoes date to 1212 |
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| An angel |
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| Simonetta, Claudia and Randy take in the impressive and venerable frescoes |
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| A fish detail from the last supper - we saw this repeated in other area churches where the last supper's table has an whole fish |
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| An angel with a pose echoing that of the donor and her children |
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| Christ being baptized |
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| A version of Hell |
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| The frescoes above seen from the ground level of the church. A single window is in the middle |
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| Claudio, ever the animal lover, found a turtle just outside |
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| Justin climbs one of the nearby rocks |
Just down the street, but hard to find because of the road construction, is the Acik Saray, or Open Palace. This is a group of (presumably) summer homes of wealthy Cappadocian families with assorted chapels, storage rooms and stables. This area was vacant except for a small group of local high school students. We wandered and climbed and admired the venerable (from the 6th and 7th centuries) structures. This was also the home of the interesting Mushroom Rock. The pictures tell the story much better than words can. Again, this is an unvisited gem of Cappadocia and we again thank John Ash for alerting us to it.
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| At last we found the Acik Saray |
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| One of the facades, well over 1000 years old |
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| The kind of creepy inside of one of the palaces |
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| Claudio and Simonetta check it out |
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| A cross in a room ceiling - this had probably been a chapel |
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| One of the many turtles in the area - we are actually seeing a lot of turtles everywhere this spring |
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| Another facade |
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| Keyhole window detail |
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| A big palace with two storeys |
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| Another interior with window |
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| Randy is one of the taller interiors |
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| A still visible geometric decoration from an exterior |
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| Turtle love |
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| Randy at another large palace |
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| Three local high school students wanted their photo taken |
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| Another facade |
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| This looks like a hobbit hole - a small carved dwelling near Mushroom Rock |
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| The sign points the way |
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| Alice at the unusual (even for Cappadocia) sight |
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| A palace near the Mushroom Rock |
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| Inside are remnants of columns |
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| Column detail |
We drove on to the heart of Cappadocia. Our hotel was in the central tourist town of Goreme. But, before arriving there, we stopped to view the impressive fortress of Uchisar, a small town. This transformed from a brief picture stop to a lengthy one involving souvenir shopping, a bit of hiking, and drinking tea and beer from the balcony of a house built into on of the fairy chimneys. This bar/cafeteria is called Tipikturkevi and is run by a family who historically lived in this house but are now relocated to a modern apartment. The son, Adnan, was friendly and welcoming and spoke pretty good English. We were so charmed by the location and the owners that we made arrangements to return the next day for lunch.
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| Simonetta and Justin at Uchhisar (Three Fortresses). The huge fortress (only a single one) looms in the background |
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| A traditional lady makes laces and sells it. Alice bought several items from this friendly rustic |
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| Alice walks alone among the tufa towers in Uchisar |
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| A closer up of the huge fortress |
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| The Tipikturkevi tufa home is on the left |
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| Claudio relaxes on the balcony with some tea |
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| Alice prefers a cold Efes |
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| Randy does too |
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| A view across from the balcony - a basalt stone atop a fairy chimney |
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| The Jardarma (federal police) station is in a fairy chimney at Uchisar! |
Arriving at the Kelebek Hotel, a "cave hotel", that is comprised of rooms mostly carved into the tufa rock we found a convenient parking place at the bottom of the sidewalk climb up to the hotel. These cave hotels are common throughout Cappadocia. The hotels usually combine several historic tufa homes and sometimes Ottoman stone homes so that each room is different and the hotels typically span many levels. The Kelebek is especially nice because it is located at the top of the town and so has wonderful views everywhere. We checked in and found that Alice and Randy were upgraded to a "king suite", not a tufa room but a stone one built on two levels. The amenities of the hotel were evident in the swimming pool (too cold for swimming this early in the season), the hamam (we did not have time to sample that), the blooming garden just outside our room, and the high terrace area with its bar, restaurant and breakfast area (we did make use of that). We all met up at the bar and watched the full moon rise while drinking the local white wine, which is pretty good and much better than the local red. We sat on traditional Turkish kilim pillows and really chilled out.
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| Our room was the left half of this building - an old stone house |
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| View from the garden in front of the house |
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| Justin relaxes on the deck area before dinner |
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| Alice does likewise with a view of the Cappadocian landscape behind |
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| The men enjoy their wine sitting like pashas |
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| The ladies also indulge in a glass |
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| A view of a fair chimney in Goreme lit up |
Around 9 PM we walked to the Top Deck restaurant, which got the best reviews in the area according to the Trip Advisor website. It turned out that Top Deck is a short (less than five minute) walk downhill from the Kelebek Hotel. This is a cave restaurant (carved into the tufa and with no windows) and had a traditional wood burning fireplace. It is run by a family and is quite small. We enjoyed the local wine (red, this time) with meze and some some meats, vegetables and rice. The restaurant owners told us the restaurant room used to be a stable and the 90 + year old owner still lived upstairs. It was a fun dinner with a lot of local character.
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| Our evening dining place |
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| Simonetta and Randy |
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| Alice, Justin and Claudio check out the menu |
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| The Arbibs |
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| Our wine with dinner - a local red - peribacasi means fairy chimney in Turkish |
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| The large meze plate had many choices |
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| The grilled vegetables and rice were great |
After walking up the hill to the hotel, we retired to our respective rooms. Each had a fireplace with a wood fire already laid. Our fireplace was in our bedroom (on the second floor) and we fell asleep in the king size bed watching the crackle of a wood fire, a real treat.
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| Moonrise over Cappedocia as seen from the deck of the Kelebek Hotel |
