Sorry it has taken me so long to get the second set of pictures up, it's been a busy week for us all! After leaving Istanbul, we flew to the Central Anatolia region of Cappadoccia, and visited the town of Goreme.
Goreme was inhabited by many civilizations prior to the time of Christ. The area is best known for it's naturally formed fairy rock chimneys, that the early Christian settlers used for churches and homes that were carved straight into the rock. Our hotel was an old family cave home for 300 years, that was converted into a hotel about 5 years ago. It was a very unique place to stay, and the boys enjoyed living in a cave for a few days.
There was a rooftop terrace to eat breakfast, and the owners grew lots of peppers that the boys enjoyed helping water each day.
View of Goreme from the rooftop.
The hotel owner took our family on a tour of the area one day. He was born and raised in Goreme, and it was a very neat way to learn about the area and the history. Our first stop was an old fairy chimney church from the 9th century. The Christians took shelter in the valleys of Goreme because of Arab raids. The original name of the town, 'gor emi', meant 'you cannot see this place. There are about 400 rock churches in the area, which was a very important center of Christianity between the 6th and 9th centuries.
The church we visited was called Kadir Durmus Church. It it was fascinating to be in side a structure this old. Just thinking about what life may have been like for the people of these times amazes me.
The story behind how the rock formations were formed is, tousands of years ago when Erciyes was an active volcano, the lava from its eruption were shaped by wind and erosion for hundred of years. The softer rock eroded away over time, leaving the hard rock on top to form what they call fairy chimneys.
Amazingly, people lived in these chimney homes up until the 1950's, when the Turkish government eventually made everyone move to a standard home for safety reasons.
We noticed that Benjamin was fascinated with picking up leaves, and realized that this is the first time he is seeing and comprehending a fall. He was born in the fall in VA, but last fall we were in Kuwait, and there without a doubt are no leaves that change color, fall, or are laying around to pick up!
We drove through several valleys throughout the day. This was the Rose Valley, known for the rose-colored rock that appears to change color throughout the day. We got out and walked along the ridge and admired the beauty of this valley.
Next we drove through Love Valley, which gets its name from the interestingly shaped fairy rock chimneys in this valley. It is truly fascinating that these are natural rock formations!
Then we stopped in a town and ate a traditional turkish lunch, which consists of spiced meats cooked in a sealed clay pot with rice. The boys tried lots of new food on this trip, though we did also eat a lot of pizza and pita with hummus :).
The last stop of the day was at an underground city. There are over 100 underground cities in the region. They were originally inhabited by the Hittites, then later by early Christians as hiding places. It was tremendously impressive to see all the horizontal and vertical tunnels linking rooms that were used for living, cooking, wine storage, drainage, and most importantly during the times defense.
Throughout the caves were air chimneys that were needed for air circulation.
The boys had fun running through the tunnels, and they were just the right size for these passage ways! Caleb asked Ben, are you ready?
They were excited that they made it to the other side!
View of the lush farmland in the area.
Caleb enjoyed some front seat rides. No car seat rules in this country either...
Driving through a few more valleys on the way home.
A view of Goreme at night.
The next day we put the boys in the hiking backpacks and went out to explore. It was not as easy to hike in the area because everything was so spread out, but we were glad to get out for some short hikes and explore for the day.
We visited the Goreme Open Air Museum, which is is an area in the town that has many of the cave churches from as early as the 3rd Century. It was packed with visitors, so we didn't got inside many of the churches, but we had a nice time exploring a few and enjoying the beautiful weather.
The 'hike' from the museum back into town.
We stopped for lunch, that Caleb mostly slept through. Glad the backpacks are still comfortable for our little 25 lbers.
Close to our hotel was a playground that we went to each day. The boys enjoyed doing 'exercisors' on the outdoor exercise machines, swinging, and playing with other kids.
Caleb's super hero pose.
Nathan befriended some local kids, and they had a who can jump the furthest off of the swing contest. They kids didn't speak any english, but that's the nice thing about play, it's a universal language. Nathan and the boys caught some serious air!
They were pretty upset when we left for the evening for dinner.
Almost every morning before sunrise, hundreds of hot air balloons fly above the valleys in Cappadocia, to admire the rock formations and beautiful scenery. Since we were not able to take a balloon ride because the boys were too young, we wanted to set out one morning before sunrise to see the balloons in flight. Well, we went out on one of the 'almost' mornings. It was windy and overcast and no balloons were flying, but we still got beautiful views of the valley.
That afternoon, we headed back to Kuwait. The very gracious hotel owner, Hasan, drove us to the airport. He was a fantastic host and really took a liking to the boys during our stay. We had such a wonderful time in Turkey. It was a great place to explore for the week, and we are thankful for the opportunity to visit this amazing place.
