Happy Birthday to my one and only great nephew Tom…hope you have a great day !!!!
It is also Pete’s Birthday, My cousin Shelia’s husband …. Best Birthday wishes to you!!
Zach the great golfer and younger son of Heather and Kirby is in Nova Scotia after winning his way to the Canada Boy’s National golf championship…this is for boys 18 and under and Zach just turned 16 last month. Unfortunately the first two rounds were not Zach’s best and he did not make the cut…Heather is travelling with him and he is obviously upset but a good learning curve for him and I know he will bounce back in his next tournament and getting to be invited to this is huge…very proud of you!!
So I was all packed by 6.45am and walked a short distance to await the bus to go to Cappadocia. Promptly at 7am a very sleek 15 seat passenger van arrived and Marhut, the guide invited me inside..there was only 6 other people on the tour so again I was lucky had the whole back seat to myself.
The van is only 6 weeks old…we started off with introductions there is a couple from Sweden, a couple from Germany and a Mother and Daughter from Holland, all very nice people. We had a long day ahead of us 580 km.
After one hour we stopped for breakfast and Marhut explained a few details one of which was why the trip was so cheap…it is for me with a single room 130 Lira..this includes transportation, 2 nights accommodation all breakfast and dinners and all entrance fees to the museums..plus the wonderful guide, is that the Government want tourists to visit other areas of Turkey so they pay the driver, the guide, the gas money and the entrance fees!!! As I stated yesterday it is a great deal for me especially as I was coming here.
This was our second stop and a wonderful museum, it really was but no photos allowed!!!
It is also the home of the famous
I love these teachings!!!
We drove a couple of hours and then stopped for lunch but I had brought my own sandwiches..
Marhut told us that now we were travelling on the famous old Silk trade route and then we were into the Cappadocia country…
This is the area of underground cities, Fairy chimney’s and incredible rock formations.
We did visit this underground city
We went down three stories and it was so amazing as the lower three levels were not open to tourists….
Our great guide!!
The above photo shows the round rock which is rolled into place to seal the cave off from enemies……apparently to help disguise the underground city when they were building it they transported the rock quarried about 30km away and also the same with the waste it went into an underground stream and flowed 30 km away..the engineering and the strength do all this by hand is amazing and it was so nice to have someone explain everything.
The last stop at 6pm was at a hotel where there was a special performance of the whirling dervishes…this was not part of the tour and the show was for an hour and cost 45 Lira…I had read reviews about this and although I understand the cultural and spiritual meaning….. the reviews were not good so I opted not to go, the rest of the group did but I took the time to walk into the small town where I did not know but it was where the hotel was.
The castle dominates the landscape for miles..
It is closed for restoration.
Had a good chat with these young ladies
the one in the white spoke not bad English and I asked permission to take their photo and as you can see they were more than happy to oblige!!!!
I walked back to the van and met the rest of the group and it was apparent the show was OK but not great.
We then arrived at our hotel at 7pm…my room is clean but very small…
Dinner at 7.30pm was not very good but the supermarket next door had yogurt and cereal…….so really a good and interesting day.
So tomorrow the plan is for a wake up call at 7.30am for buffet breakfast then at 8.30am we go on a full day tour of the area….there is another show of different dances and singers tomorrow night it is 50 Lira so have to think if I want to do this…..
Yashi kochi..
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