Cappadocia

Lonely Planet’s description of Cappadocia is more illustrative and succinct than I could ever hope to achieve …

As if plucked from a whimsical fairytale and set down upon the stark Anatolian plains, Cappadocia is a geological oddity of honeycombed hills and towering boulders of otherworldly beauty.

Since the beginning of the fourth century BC, people have been carving chambers and tunnels in the soft rock and the result was spacious homes with a constant temperature of 18C all year round. A significant benefit when you feel the extremes of temperature in the region.

Ancient volcanic eruptions blanketed this region with thick ash, which solidified into a soft rock (called tuff ) tens of meters thick. Wind and water went to work on this plateau, leaving only its harder elements behind to form a fairy tale landscape of cones, pillars, pinnacles, mushrooms, and chimneys, which stretch as far as 130 feet (40 meters) into the sky.

But human hands performed equally incredible works here. The rocky wonderland is honeycombed with a network of human-created caves; living quarters, places of worship, stables, and storehouses were all dug into the soft stone. In fact, tunnel complexes formed entire towns with as many as eight different stories hidden underground. Source: National Geographic.

Due to safety reasons (crumbling/eroding rock) – the inhabitants of the cave homes were moved out and given new flats with running water and electricity which they were apparently very happy with, until … the government sold the remaining viable dwellings to individuals/companies to be used as hotels, that attract very lucrative rates nowadays. Unfortunately, we didn’t stay at one of these hotels but we were able to visit a home that is not longer occupied but the owner has kept it furnished as it was when his grandparents lived in it. Very nice – if it wasn’t for the small matter of electricity and plumbing, I’d happily live in one of them – no neighbours, lovely and cool inside, amazing view from the balcony, little to no maintenance and floors don’t need vacuuming or mopping!!

Cappadocia is also a popular spot for hot air ballooning. We had the option of going on a pre-dawn flight but … its never been high on my bucket list, in fact it isn’t on there at all 🙂 and Jarrah wasn’t particularly interested either and besides … neither of us are morning people.

We did get to see them and take pics when we left at sparrows-fart on our last day in Turkey (we left at 6am as we had a 12 hour coach ride back to Istanbul).

Also got to see some traditional Turkish carpets and ceramics. Some of the carpets they showed us took one woman around 10 months to complete!

On our last evening in Cappadocia, most of the remaining group (most of our group were on a different tour that ended a day earlier than ours) – went to a rooftop restaurant for dinner: