Fairy Chimneys, Underground Cities and Monk Cave Mansions

 

 

Welcome to Fairy Chimney Land.
And from "Imagination Land" - what animals do you see in the following pictures?

 

 

All of the above pictures are from my Day One tour of the Cappadocia Region. My mind has now officially exploded with historical information. That is what I get for coming to the birthplace of humanity. Only an hour before I leave for my next destination, so I can't go into all of the history and geology, but I would bore you anyway. Look it up. But I will say that during these last two days, I have had excellent tours and excellent guides. And listen to the mixture of who I hung out with: an Indian -born couple who call New Zealand home and who are working in Dubai, a Brazilian man who works for a German car company and his parents, who are here visiting. His father is Brazilian and his mother is Japanese.  Really sweet family. Court, the father, is 85 and he went on every single outing, including the 3.5 mile "trek" next to a beautiful river (took 400 steps down to get to the trekking part). Here are Court and Lydea:

 

 

 

And here is Omar, in the underground city that was built by the Christians in the 8th Century to hide from all of their attackers. Most amazing thing we saw, and we saw A LOT - each day's tour was over eight hours. Julie, your mind would have also exploded with the history and I would have appreciated the mutual explosion. Anyway, Omar is on the "punishment wall":

 

 

We saw 1/10th of this city, which could hold over 2,000 people completely underground for six months at a time. Absolutely incredible.

 

We also saw a monk's cave mansion- the picture below the mansion is the monk's cathedral within one of those cave openings:

 

 

We also hung out at this platform on the beautiful river where we hiked:

 

And - have two eggplant dishes to report on: an "eggplant salad" that is very much like my "forgetaoubit" eggplant dip: roasted eggplant and tomatoes, onions instead of garlic, parsley instead of basil. Red pepper. But the picture didn't turn out. Tonight I went with the classic eggplant stuffed with mincemeat. I went up to Sunset Hill again last night, and the same request was made for my picture by a Middle Eastern man. But this time, his friend took my picture, too. At least I know where to go to meet Middle Eastern Men. Or I could just walk down the street. Geez.  

 

 

 

 

Ok, that's all I've got for now. Goodnight everyone, I am getting on ANOTHER night bus. But this one is going to be amazing.