Turkey - Captivated by Cappadocia - Day 347(24,734 miles)

Around 18 years ago John and I spent a couple of weeks in Turkey based on the Aegean coast, although it was meant to be a relaxing time we quickly filled it with a few days on a boat and trips to Ephesus and Pamukkale. It was on this trip that we first saw pictures of Cappadocia, we both wanted to visit then but just didn’t have the time, still 18 years on we made it here.

We loved it and thought it was absolutely beautiful hence there are rather a lot of photo's this time. It's quite a big area so we based ourselves in Goreme a nice little place with plenty of pensions and places to eat.

This is one of THE places in the world to take a balloon flight, we couldn't justify the cost (we had rather underestimated our budget for Turkey) but at 6am each morning our pension roof terrace was a great place to watch the take offs.













The trogladyte dwellings and churches in the region date back to the Hittite period (quite a while BC).



We met up with Harry again (mentioned in our last blog) and had a great evening with him and Hitome from Japan who was on a bit of a whirlwind tour of the major sites of Turkey.


Alot of what we saw was on foot from Goreme but we did a 200km round trip one day to visit some other sites.




Above and below is Selime monastry, location for some of the Star Wars film that Ewan Mc was in (not sure if he's been in more than one).









John unable to relax with a book or music and on an economy drive decided to fix his broken umbrella (well it did cost about 2 quid in Bangkok). He spent ages whittling (I think that's the right word) a piece of wood into a suitably sized splint for the broken spoke. Oh the excitement of world travel.

We spent a day hiking in the Rose and Red Valleys, stunning views.





Flippin hot and a bit of a climb.








After a long day walking we felt we could justify a nice dinner and some local wine (not bad stuff).



Leaving Paradise Pension in Goreme, 2nd from the left is Diane an independent traveller from Canada who is exploring Greece and Turkey. Some great conversations with Diane and the warmth and helpfulness of Erdo and the staff here made it hard to drag ourselves away.

Bye for now.