On the Road. . . .
An eight hour drive, lots of snacks, lots of car games, and lots of listening to Adventures in Odyssey. It was a great drive, good weather and lots to see from shepherds with their flock to volcanoes in the distance.
Göreme. . .
Our final destination, a small village in the middle of the Cappadocia region, full of cave hotels and restaurants. These little villages with all the caves and houses carved out of rock formations look like a picture out of a sci-fi book. Or as Malachi said, we had arrived on the moon. However you see it, it is other-worldly. Very cool place. A little like the badlands in SD and very different and unique as well. We headed out for a spectacular sunset above the village, slept in a 200 year old cave (hotel) for the first night, and awoke to the sky dotted with hot air balloons.
Open Air Museum. . .
We toured the Open Air Museum outside of Goreme, where we toured through many cave churches carved into the rocks a thousand years ago. Again, these are the kind of places perfect for kids. Lots of room to explore and use their imagination as they walked through these old churches and houses with stairs and tables carved out of the rock. They had a great time as did we.
Hiking Pigeon Valley. . .
This area of Turkey boasts many hiking trails. We were ready to hit the trail and decided on the Pigeon Valley. It is a valley with lots to explore, lots of caves up in the cliffs, turtle fights to break up and tunnels to hike through. Even with our initial grumpy hikers, we all left happy. To close the day we headed out to another village and found this great soup cooked in clay pots sealed with bread. It was tasty and Sonora was kept busy working on napkin art to add to their display.
Ihlara Valley. . .
Well worth the drive out, this valley hike was awesome. We only wish we had allotted more time. Surrounding the area are snow covered mountains. In the valley, newly opened for the season, is a stream the trail follows and steep cliffs on both sides full of caves to explore. Not natural caves but old dwellings and some churches that were carved out of the rock centuries before. In one place we entered a network of rooms on one end and traversed inside through tunnels and rooms for about 100 yards. There was so much more to do but we failed to bring a flash light. So we did what we felt safe to do with the flash from our camera. The kids thought it was pretty cool. There were a few places I felt claustrophobic, but they were troopers. We rewarded ourselves with ice cream back at our hotel.
Avanos. . .
Another village in the region, Avanos is famous for their pottery and potters. They still make the Hittite style pots which are very different in style and color from the classic Ottoman style with the tulips and blues. The highlight was this little pottery shop where the kids each got to throw their own pot on the wheel. Ali Dede was a remarkable patient man, taking his time helping both Malachi and Sonora work their pot on his wheel. They even got to take them home!
We also visited an underground city somewhere near this village. It was four stories deep, a series of tunnels from room to room. We read that some of these underground cities supported populations as large as 10,000 people centuries ago. Many believe there are more in the region yet to be discovered. There is a picture of Malachi with the Turkish man who discovered the one we toured. Apparently, back in the 70's he discovered this underground city while tending his garden. It is a nice museum today. I should say that there are so many old caves and underground cities that in these small villages many of the residents still use them for storing their vegetables throughout the summer and winter. I say that to give you a picture of how common these places are. There are just too many to make a museum out of each one.
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