Cappadocia - Day 1

After an exhausting day of traveling and site seeing
I still managed to wake up bright and early to eat (yemek) breakfast.

Good-Morning (Gunaydin) Urgup!

In Urgup

(Above)

Yesterday we were very tired of walking... but it was nothing compared to how much we walked today.  I'm pretty sure that this street sign stands for "legs breaking".

(below)

First stop in Cappadocia,

Goreme Open Air Museum

This 7 story rock was the nunnery and monastery in Goreme.

The bottom floor has a kitchen (mutfak) and dining hall

The many other floors included tunnels that led to several churches.  Many tunnels collapsed since.

Notice how tall it is.

(above)

Church entrance in Goreme

(above)

Carikli (Sandals) Church

(below)

The church is named for two footprints that are below the ascentation of Jesus.

The rumors are that they are Jesus's foot prints, but that is not accurate.

Carikli has two floors.  Throughout the church there are many scenes, 12 of them being stages in Jesus' life.

3 from His childhood, 2 in maturity, and 7 while suffering and ascending into heaven.

Fresco painting of the angel Gabriel

(Above)

In the center of the dome is Jesus.

Above him are angels.  Below him are the authors of the Bible; Matta, Lucas, John the baptist and Marcus.

(Above)

Written in one of the frescoes is "I am the light of the World, who follows me will not be left in the dark." - Jesus Christ

Other paintings include Virgin Mary and angels Michael and Uriel.

Table (Masa) and seating around it

(Above)

Walking through tunnels

(Above)

A view of Goreme

(Above)

After Goreme, we began walking when we ran into a pottery shop and stable with horses.  Horse back rides through Goreme?  Sounds great, but we decided we still had a list of things we wanted to see before the day ended.

We did stop and take a few photos, though.

(Below)

We then walked through modern day Goreme and took a bus to Uchisar.

More walking through that town till we came to the castle ruins.

This was the most populated area in Uchisar until it became dangerous and people started moving away.

(Below)

After our climb to the very top of the castle (that big rock mass in the picture above) we then carefully went back down and walked through the town and marketplace, took a road that we guessed would lead us to a bus, and began walking again.

On our walk we ran into the World's largest rooster... at least by our standards.

(Below)

In the middle of our walk we passed a large area where we later found out was called Pigeon Valley.

The valley had holes and doors and rooms carved out for pigeons!

Of course we ran into a ton of the birds too.

(Below)

We finally found a bus station...bench and sat.

The Dolmus came and we went back to Urgup for some dinner...

After all the walking I figured we deserved some junk food.

Snickers!!

Tomorrow is the last day in Urgup and still many more places to see before heading back to Izmir!

Bebek Bunny

Breakfast time!

"Cicek Ekmek" - flower bread, as we called it.

It has been a very hot day, as usual.  I'm getting used to it now but we could definitely use some rain!

Today was a day for air conditioning so Michael and I went to a archaeology museum.

A lot of people might find this boring, but that is my place to be!

This is a statue of a man, it was found in Ephesos. Roman period. Second century A.D.

Look at the amazing detail!  It looks as if they draped fabric rather than stone!

I don't know much about this piece but I could swear someone went to town with it with a sword or knife.  If you look close, there appears to be slash marks across the whole face, only three even stroke across the neck, and multiple going downwards on the chest.  Also, on the upper and lower forehead there are two slightly deeper gashes that are, to me, shaped like a cross.  I walked around the statue and found these marks were no where else but the face and chest.

This is a statue of the Priest of the Imperial Cult.  Roman period. Second century A.D.

This was also found in Ephesos.

The detail on this statue is just amazing.  So smooth and beautiful!

He even still had his ring in perfect condition.  The only park of this statue that didn't make it all the way to the museum were parts of this priests face.

I was a little freaked out to go near this exhibit.  There were a bunch of tombs and when we saw this, we realized that it is a newborn babies tomb.  If you look closely, you can see all the little bones, almost perfectly preserved.  It is from the Byzantine Necropolis, on the left side of the Athena Temple.  8th Century A.D.

We then went into a museum with artifacts such as clothing, fabrics, and weapons.  This specific exhibit made me laugh.out.loud.  Look at the little boys face!  I am not sure why they had an exhibit to show the circumcision room... but I couldn't resist!

And I may have had a little too much fun playing with the statues!

Michael and I then walked around the city and shopped a little, got subway for dinner, and headed home.

He has a picture of me as a toddler on his wall where I was dressed as a bunny for Halloween...

DRESS UP TIME!

His family had a laugh.

Goodnight!