Monday 5th May
Left the swanky hotel in Istanbul bound for Cappadocia early Sunday morning. I’m not sure I’m really cut out for a cruise way of life but the bonus is someone tells me where to stand. We arrived at the smaller airport (forgot the name, sorry) and had to lug our baggage to the far end where our gate was. 2 sets of security, self serve boarding pass (everyone in the airport needed assistance for the self serve which makes you wonder why they call it self serve) and then board.
Tour of Cappadocia started as soon as we landed and, after the flight and anxiety of being unable to communicate, I was zonked before we reached the first stop.
It appears the Turks like to name things with appropriate titles that have significance to the land site or history of the area such as Pigeon Valley named thus as there are lots of pigeons in the area.
The first place we visited is referred to as Fairy Towers owing to the odd rock structures.
I think a more appropriate name would be the Phallic Fields. I didn’t share this gem with anyone.
Bit of scrambling up shale and gravel and then we descended into the Underground City, appropriately named as it was a city and, well, underground. apparently the underground dwellings were still inhabited until the 1950s. Many dwellers rejected the offer of free housing as they preferred the underground caves.
I went all Indiana Jones (see pic below) and started humming dum-de-dum-dum, dum-de-dah… which no one appreciated (they’re a dull lot) but everyone laughed when I walked through a tunnel without ducking my head. Yeah, super funny, extremely tall American dude. Sorry you had to bend double to get through.
We were told that the local police still use one of the caves as their police station.
Next was the journey to our hotel. We drove past some truly spectacular scenery, extremely dry but with fields of luscious weeds (no idea) which was heavily irrigated so really green.
I’ve been away from an internet connection for a few days so have forgotten exactly what we did. Best stop here and post again with further updates.
Rhudimentary 