Cappadocia

 The Cappadocia region is shown on the map in the previous post.  

 We arrived in Göreme by bus after dark and walked up to our hotel which was less than a kilometer.  The town is old and buildings are mostly built with rocks. But it was uphill on a narrow road paved with stones.  The picture isn’t great, but it gives you an idea of neighborhood.  We’d find out that most of this hill was ‘cave hotels’ built in old houses and even in the strange rock formations that the area is famous for.  

I used the word ‘old’ just now.  Let’s clarify that.

‘Göreme is a unique town located in the Cappadocia region of Turkey. It is known for its fairy chimneys, rock-cut churches, and cave dwellings. The town’s history goes back to ancient times when the Hittites were the first to inhabit the area. Later, Göreme became an important center of Christianity, and many churches were carved out of the soft volcanic tuff rock. In the 4th century, Göreme became a monastic settlement for hermits who lived in the caves and practiced asceticism.”

What does “ancient times” mean? 

The Hittite Empire was an ancient civilization in Anatolia from the late 17th century BC to the end of the 12th century BC. The Hittites provided significant examples of stone masonry. Stone reliefs are commonly found on monumental structures, such as city walls and gates. If you read that paragraph and pulled 4th century out to determine ‘old’, that’s perfectly reasonable.  But go back to “ancient times when the Hittites were the first . . .” (From a Koç University site)

Our hunger got us back down that street to a looking for a place to eat.  The photo isn’t too clear, but under ZUKRA it says “Pasta & Bliss.”

In Turkish, pasta means cake.  But it was in English and it sure looks like pasta on the plate.  I asked J, “Does it mean pasta in English or Turkish?  Looks like English.”  And it was a pasta place, but I was hoping to have lentil soup, which is delicious in Turkey.  I asked the young lady if they had soup.  She said no, but to wait a second.  

She came back and said her mother would make me soup.  So we had dinner there.  The whole family worked there - mom, dad, and the two adult kids.  And no, it wasn’t lentil soup, but it was a delicious tomato based pasta soup.  

The next morning at 5:55am I was supposed to be ready for a balloon ride.  Cappadocia is known for balloons.  I’d decided that everyone should probably ride a balloon at least once and that Cappadocia was one of the best places to do that.  J didn’t agree with the first

They said there were 160 balloons aloft.  It was magical. I bonded with a French Canadian couple as we lifted up in morning twilight.  

It was chilly - about 35˚F (1.6˚C).  Colder than it was that day in Anchorage.  I had several layers on, and fortunately I was relatively close to the propane burner.

Soon we were up and drifting over the many rock formations that Cappadocia is famous for.

The ride was just under an hour and I got back in time for the hotel’s buffet breakfast that comes with the room.  Maybe I’ll do a post on the breakfasts.

Then we were picked up for the ‘Red Tour”.  The next day we did the “Green Tour”.  Cappadocia’s tourist industry is highly organized.  One tour goes to the north, the other to the south.  Big white VW busses (not vans, but busses that hold 20 people or so) come up the narrow streets picking up their passengers from their hotels.  Where we were the street was very narrow and one way, and if a passenger wasn’t out waiting and the guide had to go looking for them, it would lead to seven or more vehicles blocked.

I’m running out of steam here, so I’m going to focus just on the rock formations parts of the tours and combine the two.  I wanted the people in this picture so you’d get a sense of the size of these formations.  People, over the millennia, have carved out spaces inside the formations and lived in them, had churches in them.  

“Geologically, Cappadocia is an ancient region that has been shaped by millions of years of geological activity, including volcanic eruptions, tectonic movements, and erosion. The landscape is characterized by soft, easily erodible volcanic tuff, which has been sculpted into a variety of shapes by the forces of wind and water.

Over the centuries, humans have also played a role in shaping the landscape of Cappadocia. The region has a rich history of human settlement, dating back to the Hittites in the 2nd millennium BCE, and later occupied by the Persians, Greeks, Romans, and Byzantines. The people of Cappadocia have also left their mark on the landscape, carving homes, churches, and other structures into the soft volcanic rock.” (From Geology Science)

 

One last very memorable visit on the tour was the Nevşehir Kaymaklı Underground City.  This is a city build underground - eight stories underground.  I couldn’t figure out how to take good pictures - I had to keep up with the folks in our tour.  But you can go to the link to learn more.  The public is only allowed to go down four levels.

Besides narrow passageways with low ceilings, there are bigger spaces for sleeping, kitchen areas, and ‘living rooms.’  People lived in these underground cities when they were in danger from enemy armies.  They were down there up to several weeks at a time.  For those wondering, they also had a ventilation system, which was pointed out, but not explained.  

I’d note the first day tour included people from Germany, Italy, Japan, London (originally from Hong Kong), Palestine, and Turkey.  We were the only Alaskans, and the only people from the US.  As we stopped at different places we got to talk to all the folks.  The next day it was just us and three women from Brazil who we got to know fairly well.  The guides were excellent.  

We’re back in Istanbul, exploring this amazing city.  I’m looking at Istanbul itself as a museum.  We’re learning how to use all the public transportation - which includes busses, trams (on tracks), ferries, a subway, and a furnicular.  I may have missed something.  We’ve figured out how to use and refill our Istanbul Card - which you tap to use the various forms of transportation.  And we’re eating well.  

I’m going to post this now and I’ll proof it again tomorrow and make any necessary edits.  

Some Turkeyı Pics

Keeping up here has been difficult.  We’re just too busy, but let me just give you some selected pictures and comments.  

We met with a travel agent our trusted hotel guy recommended.  He put us on a whirlwind tour of the places we wanted to go.  Konya and Cappadocia.  Fortunately I’d done a bit of research and knew we could get a fast train to Konya and then a bus the rest of the way.  On the map below, Konya is to the lower left of the red circle showing the Cappadocia region.  We stayed in Göreme, which is northeast of Kayseri.  Istanbul is in the upper left between the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara.

These men whirled slowly, like they were connecting with the universe.  See more on Sufi dervishes here.

Konya proved a true highlight.  I’d seen that Çatalhöyük was closed on Mondays, so we left Saturday.  Our travel agent arranged for a guide with knowledge of Çatalhöyük who picked us up at the train station.  WhatsApp proves to be very helpful communicating.  Çatalhöyük is a world heritage site.

Our guide turned out to be a Sufi teacher who teaches college level - not only was he knowledgeable, but he practiced his Sufi - with lots of care for us.  I’d also read that there were whirling dervish (performance isn’t the right word,). There’s a huge modern building where they whirl on Saturday evenings from 7-8 or so.  Our guide showed us where it was before dropping us off at the hotel.  We had a delicious local meal
next door to the hotel and then walked to the Mevlana Center.  (Mevlana, as I understand it, is the Turkish name for Rumi, the founder of Sufism.)

The next morning we walked a bit after breakfast and I was duly impressed by this blue motorcycle.

We were scheduled to go to the Mevlana Museum, which was across the street from the hotel.  We didn’t realize that - we thought it was a mosque.  And it had been a mosque, but is now a museum for Mehvlana (Rumi).  But the name ‘museum’ doesn’t do it justice.  It had been a like a monastery for men studying to become Sufi dervishes (I need to be careful here with my terminology.  My understanding is they would become monks, though again I’m not sure that’s the right word.)  So in addition to the old mosque, attached to it are a series of cells for the acolytes. 

The picture below shows Mevlana’s tomb inside the old mosque.  Rather than requiring people to remove their shoes, they provided paper shoe covers to wear.  

There is a mosque right next to the museum.  There’s a pic below showing the mosque (to the right) and the museum from the night before when we walked back from the dervishes. 

The picture above is Çatalhöyük. This is a site that dates back to the Neolithic period.  (Yes, I had to look it up to better understand what we were looking at).  But 9000 years ago, people built this community of 3500 - 8000 people.  The living spaces are all connected to each other.  There were no streets.  People had ladders inside to the roof, and the roofs were the ‘streets’ of this place.  There’s a museum which explains a lot, then there are some reconstructed dwellings that you can go into to see how people lived.  Finally, there is the actual archeological site.

I’m going to let people who are interested, go to the link to find out more.  The picture above is a tiny part of the complex under a large cover that visitors are allowed to see.  There’s another section open to the public, but it wasn’t open when we were there.  

I’m still trying to grasp people who were only just beginning to transition from hunter/gatherer to growing some of their own food, and developing this complex housing system.  

The picture below shows the mosque, to the right, and the Mevlana Museum.  The green tiled turret in the museum area is from the original building, which if I got it right, was build in the 1200s. The rest was built later. Later = 1500s.  

Think about it.  The turquoise green turret in the back of the museum complex was built over 200 years before Columbus’ reached what became ‘the new world.,’. Humans back then were just as clever and just as emotional as we are today.  Not really much difference from what I can tell.

 

There is a lot referenced in this post that people know little or nothing about, so I won’t feel bad if I don’t post again right away and give you time to check out the links.