Cappadocia

Wednesday 23 September
An early departure from Istanbul to the airport for a flight to Kayseri in Cappadocia, central Turkey.

After lunch of meze platter and apple tea, we visited the Goreme open air museum.

The landscape is amazing with natural rock formations which have been produced by weather effects over many many years and where we visited at least three Christian churches which were carved into the soft rock and painted with frescoes including St Barbara church, Apple church and Snake church. We could have spent all day exploring there and it is a must-see with so much history attached amidst the landscape which could be on another planet or on the moon.

In the afternoon we visited a government run carpet weaving centre. From past experience, I realise that having group in such a place is a distinct advantage to avoid any hard selling.

By chance it was an important religious ceremony called Eid.Bayram which we were told relates to a bible story of Abraham choosing to sacrifice his son and today animals are sacrificed, although we didn’t see any sacrifices. It was very busy with Turkish holiday makers.

Unfortunately it meant we needed to change hotel and we missed out on staying in a cave room hotel. We stayed out of Urgup at a new hotel called the Hill hotel. It was still experiencing some plumbing problems but the staff were very friendly (so that made up for the plumbing), the room was big and comfortable and they put on a big banquet for the group that night.