Mustafa Hotel Urgup

... has done superb restoration, and it seems lots of groups don't come here because there's an extra admission. So it seems by visiting there, I got out of the wave pattern of tour groups speaking Spanish, French, English (very poorly), Japanese, German, and several other languages I couldn't discern. After being awed by the Dark Church, I continued to make my way through all the places to visit. I managed once again to find myself alone in ...

... hill side and realized this is where the hotels are so we check out what the cave rooms are, yes, the hotels are refurbished homes built into the mountain sides - caves. There are some $200+ night boutique hotels, and some pensions. We find the prices are negotiable as it is cold and not many tourists. We look in at the Dervish Cave Hotel. It a newly done cave hotel, the floors are laminate a big bedroom, there is a TV in the room, and a big Jacuzzi tub, glass ...

Goreme means 'must see' and 'can't see'. It's in a valley carved by river floods over a few million years and is characterised by the 'fairy chimneys', spires of rock left after the erosion. Weird looking place but worth a visit. Some scenes of star wars a new hope were filmed here I think. We spent the majority of the time lazing by the pool but managed walks in Pigeon and Ilhara valleys, a visit to the open air museum (lots of ...

... in the area, which then covered the softer ground in vulcanic rock. Over time the rock has eroded, so now the region is covered in a volcanic lunar landscape, with tall rock pillars all over. Furthermore ancient civilisations found out that it was really easy to carve the rock, so they lived inside these rock formations, people aren,t living there anymore, but you can still see their dug-outs. At Göreme Open-air Museum you can view one such village of dug-outs, including ...

... about onyx and marble. With all due respect to whomever drew the simple map Dawn gave me of the area hiking trails, I got lost during one of my attempted hikes down Zindananu Valley. Early on in I came across a couple who had just parked their car and were heading in with a picnic basket. The fellow knew a bit of English. Turns out he's the mayor of one of the adjacent villages. After ...

... of Uchisar. It was just as well, as we would probably have spent a fair amount of time finding our way out. The walk was incredible. Deep in the valley, the views up either side of the natural and man-made hollowed structures was remarkable. Right at the end, we were led through an apparently typical Turkish structure carved out of a fairy chimmeny. The structure actually comprized a number of interconnected "buildings" over about 4 or 5 different ...

... the Turkish Nights dance show. In the carpark we were greeted by security guards with walkie talkies, who checked that we were in the right place and then escorted us down into the cave restaurant. We were shown into a large empty cavern. As we moved towards our table we finally saw two other couples nibbling away at their meals. It was a large space for six people. Once the buses arrived the room started to fill up. The dancing started with ...

I think we are all back on a "normal" schedule now. We woke up at a reasonable hour, had another fabulous breakfast buffet, complete with Nutella (chocolate hazlenut spread) on toast. We packed and went out to the store to buy snacks. We settled on breadsticks and simit and pistachios. We still had plenty of time to get to the bus station, but I didn't fancy hauling all the luggage up and down the stairs at the metro, so we took a cab. It was a fine thing that ...

... none. Suffice to say we arrived in one piece at about 5:30am this morning and dashed into our hotel for a shower and a nap. SOOOO good. Our adventures this afternoon made our trip all worth while. After recieving a cryptic and uninformative briefing from our tour guide leader, we resisted the pressure to sign on to expensive guided tours of the area (go weaving and pottery making!) and set off to do our own thing. We were again joined ...