Hotel Cappadocia Melagobia Nevsehir

... get in the back of the pack and hold back my horse and let it eat and do whatever it wanted... Then with a couple hundred yards in between me and the last horse, I'd kick the horse into gear and trot, or if I was lucky canter. Now I was just doing that with an ATV.<br><br>From the base of the Rose Valley we went to the Love Valley. The Love Valley can only be named for the rock representation of a certain male body part used in acts of love. It's very beautiful, but ...

... the mood for meat, so she asked if she could get some veggies with her Pide or something, though that wasn't on the menu, and the waiter said he'd take care of it.<br><br>Of course he wanted to know where we were from. In Turkey, if you are white, they think you are from Australia or New Zealand, so that was his assumption for Jeremy, Jessica, Kristen, and I.<br><br>Phoenix is half-Chinese, but she doesn't have a very distinctive look, only her skin tone is a little ...

... s house for a lunch of 'shepard salad' (tomatoes, green on&#305;on, cucumbers, parsley, ol&#305;ve o&#305;l and lemon ju&#305;ce w&#305;th salt), wh&#305;te bean stew w&#305;th beef and tomatoes, bulgar, and fresh fru&#305;t for dessert.). 4:30 or so to a woman's carpet cooperat&#305;ve for a demonstrat&#305;on of how the carpets are woven and knotted (the government subs&#305;d&#305;zes certa&#305;n th&#305;ngs on the cond&#305;t&#305;ons that the weavers are g ...

... with St. Basil of Caesarea. I can't figure out how reliable that all is-or whether or not it's really important. These churches are in varying conditions. Some have suffered much decay, while a couple are in amazing shape. What's impressive are the frescoes, especially in a church called the Dark Church. It's named that because there was originally only one window letting in light; so the frescoes there are absolutely stunning. The ...

... Michael's moped decided it no longer wanted to start up, so we had to call the rental company and wait for them to bring him a new one. When they arrived, they took one look at his moped, smiled and said "ahhh, this one". Apparently it breaks down frequently. We hoped that his replacement would fare better, and we were on our way! We made our way towards Urgup through the Devrent Valley, also known as the valley of fairy chimneys. After stopping and taking a short hike ...

... a few ancient church caves bored into the hills...    A few of the other collective highlights that we engaged in were taking in Derinkuyu, an underground city that was dug straight down into the earth, so as to provide a place of protection for the early Christians in the area... a maze of tunnels and rooms carved 197 feet underground with eight floors of stables, storage rooms, living quarters, churches and wine press rooms for making ...

... fascinating to learn how ancient people had survived and flourished in such a strange and harsh environment. Another positive aspect to a visit here is the current population. Throughout the region there are small and charming villages. Most are built around these towering rock castles and incorporate cave dwellings in the fairy chimneys right into their current housing. We've never seen such interesting neighborhoods. Some of the villages have turned heavily to tourism and some still ...

... a direction and saying 'Goreme'. We thanked them profusely and began another hard traverse through tight passageways and steep rock faces trying to create our own foot and hand holds when needed. (Why do we do this???) What seemed like hours later, we finally saw something man-made. There were arrows ...

... was a visit to our leaders home town of Urgup... we had an ice cream and made a visit to his Uncles shop (jewellry and knick knacks). I bought some dervish men dancing on a strip of paper... Our last stop of the day was a quick visit into a local winery. I'm not convinced on Turkish wine yet -- we are so spoilt in Australia... Back at the hotel i had a night off from the group to catch up on things and to chill out and it had been a long exhausting day!

... rocks a city of approx 20,000 sits in 8 levels of rooms, passages, churches, and food and wine stores. Inhabitants lived above ground most time but retreated into this underground stronghold when threatened. We travel to many vantage points around the Goreme region for photo stops to view the many fairy chimney landscape features. Lunch in restaurant based on the style of a caravanserai and on to the Zelve Valley. Another valley with fascinating rock formations and carved out ...