Previous Day (Bosphorus Cruise & Topkapi Palace)
Destination: Greece & Turkey
Duration: 18 Days 17 Nights (Aug 06~Aug 23, 2012)
Day 2: Istanbul –> Cappadocia
We were picked up in an unearthly hour of 5am to catch an
early domestic flight to Cappadocia. Magnificent Travel had booked us on
Turkish Airlines for this 1 hour flight and we got to know in the airport that
Turkish Airlines actually won the Best European Airlines for 2011 and 2012!
Wow! What makes them stand-out?
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| The Sun was still missing when we arrived in Airport! |
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| BATMAN?!! Is that a location or a flight straight to Bruce Wayne's lair? |
One thing that caught my eyes was the FOOD (what else?
*facepalm*)! In a short one hour flight (TK2006), we were served a Turkish
white cheese sandwich, yoghurt and some dried fruits in a little picnic basket!
How cute and thoughtful!
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| Sammy Approves!!! |
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| Look at the Big White Cheese! |
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| Landing to Nevsehir Airport |
Once we reached Nevsehir airport, another 4 people (2
Australian guys and 2 hot Brazilian gals) from the flight and us were picked up
by the local tour agency - Crossroad Travel. The van then continued to pick up
more passengers from hotels to start our Cappadocia (the Land of Beautiful
Horses) journey.
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| A Small Airport, we just had to walk from the plane to terminal... |
Our 1st stop of the day was at the Panoramic view point Red Valley where our tour guide explained to us
the formation of Cappadocia landscape and its history. Apparently a lot of
Christians came to Cappadocia to escape persecution – the landscape there made
it difficult to locate them. A bit of
geographical lesson here: the rock formation was formed as a result of the
natural forces during the intense volcanic activity. It was then aided by wind,
climate, mechanical weathering, rain, snow, and rivers caused the erosion.
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| The Rock Formation |
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| A Panoramic View |
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| A Mati Tree! I want! |
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| Total Stealing the Pose from a Hot Foreign Girl but Failed Miserably! *Facepalm* |
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| Sammy looks much better! |
We continued to Göreme Open Air Museum – where the
world´s most important Byzantine cave churches are found. There were schools,
churches and houses in this open air museum. The churches here were
particularly well preserved with Byzantine cave wall paintings. The cave houses
were easily carved as the rock below the top layer of basalt is extremely soft. Unfortunately photographs were not allowed in certain rock churches though.
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| A View from Goreme |
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| Sammy was there! |
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| Entering Goreme Open Air Musuem |
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| Christian Wall Painting |
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| The Girls' School - Closed from Entrance due to Collapse, they totally studied in cave houses in old time! |
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| The Museum Surrounding |
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| Queueing up to get into a Narrow Tunnel |
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| A View to other Cave Houses from the Museum |
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| Pigeon Houses! Pigeon Dropping was precious as fertilizer... |
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| Getting into a Typical Cave House |
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| This is the Kitchen! |
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| Dining Room! |
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| A View from the Cave Houses |
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| One of the Churches |
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| Photography is allowed in this church! Look at all the wall painting! |
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| Sammy striking a pose! |
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| Some horses (or are they donkeys?) when we were walking to our bus |
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| Random Rock Formation near the Bus Parking |
Lunch was at Kazan Restaurant with appetizer, soup, main
course (chicken pot) and rice pudding. I absolutely adored the rice pudding and
ate them as often as I could during my stay in Turkey.
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| Kazan Restaurant |
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| Cozy! |
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| The Interior |
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| Appetizers were all on the table |
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| Soup |
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| Another Appetizer - with cheese inside |
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| The fragrant rice! Love this! |
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| Chicken Pot |
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| Rice Pudding!!! |
We were then ushered to a carpet gallery to understand
the art of making a Turkish carpet, basically it was where they tried to get
tourist to buy something during a tour where the tour guide could get some
commission. Unfortunately for the tour guide, our group didn’t buy a thing.
Haha…
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| Carpet Gallery! |
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| One Carpet could take up to 18 months to complete |
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| The "Showroom" |
Pasabag aka Monks Valley was our next destination – this
place contains some of the most striking fairy chimneys in Cappadocia with twin
and even triple rock caps. This style is unique even for Cappadocia and these
fairy chimneys are named mushroom-shaped fairy chimneys. There was a chapel
dedicated to St. Simeon there as well.
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| The Fairy Chimneys! |
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| A Panoramic View of Monks Valley |
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| Going up to the Church |
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| Magnificent Rock Formation at the Top |
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| Climbing into One of the Rooms |
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| A View from the Top |
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| Can you spot Sammy? |
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| Another Angle |
Our bus then continued to Devrent Valley – the
“Imagination Valley” where we saw various shape of animals from the rock
formation with a bit of imagination.
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| What is this? |
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| A Panoramic View of Imagination Valley, what else can you spot? |
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| You can walk up to be nearer! Slippery though... |
We had a stop at Avanos to look at the red river where
the resident uses the red clay for pottery. We watched a demonstration of
pottery making technique where someone started humming ‘enchanted melody’ tunes
and everyone cracked up. The manager
joked that man in Avanos would have to know how to make pottery before they
could get married – since he had been in the business for 30 years thus he was
looking for a 2nd wife – a No. 2! This was when our HOT Brazilian
gal said she was looking for her No. 3! A love match? =p
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| The Red River |
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| The Pottery Making Station |
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| Our Hot Brazilian Volunteer Hecilia making Pottery |
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| The work of a Master and a Student |
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| The Gallery |
After the long day, we finally checked in to Burcu Kaya
Hotel where we would stay for 2 nights. The hotel was renovated like a cave
houses but the area there seem pretty isolated.
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| Main Gate of Burcu Kaya Hotel |
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| Burcu Kaya Hotel Garden |
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| Main Entrance of Burcu Kaya Hotel |
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| Nice Deco at the Reception Area |
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| Hotel Lobby |
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| On the Way to our Room |
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| Our humble room for 2 nights |
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| Small little Bathroom |
We walked for quite long on a slope before finding a ‘super
market’ to buy some drinking water and got back to the hotel since there was
nothing there.
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| A View during our 'Adventure' |
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| The Super Market |
Dinner was included in our hotel package so we had our dinner
in the hotel restaurant – drinks were extra as usual. There were a lot of
varieties of food there so we got to taste something different. A small caution
on Turkish dessert – they were drenched in syrup thus they were super sweet! Unless
you have a very sweet tooth, you might find it a tad too sweet.
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| Hotel Restaurant from the Top |
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| Lots of Tables there |
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| The Dessert Section |
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| Appetizers |
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| Some of the Main Courses |
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| Desserts!!! |
We called it a night early as we had a hot air balloon
ride next morning and would had to be picked up at the wee hour of 4.30AM!
*facepalm* There was a mix-up on our hot air balloon reservation but thanks to
the help of our hotel receptionist, the matter was solved immediately. I think
she might be the hotel English speaking hospitality host as well as we could
see her everywhere greeting the guests. Very exceptional service there. *thumbs
up*
Next Day (Hot Air Balloon & South Cappadocia)
Masterpost (Click this to get to day by day link)
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