Central Anatolia: Cappadocia, land of natural wonders.

Cappadocia, land of natural wonders. It includes Kaymakli, Gerome, Uchisar, and another four centers.   This post is quite long because we stayed here for two nights and visited many places like Kaymakli, Gerome Open Air museum, Valley of Imagination, Carpet making centre, jewelry centre and other view stops. More than half of us went up the air balloon trip.

This is Kaya Uchisar hotel that we stayed for two nights. Next to the hotel in the dark background is the Uchisar Castle.

Famous people who had stayed here

The tunnel-like corridor leading to the guest rooms.       The ceiling of the rooms are arc-like and there is a door behind the curtain which opens to the balcony. Was too busy with the computer to open the door and appreciate the view outside. My daughters were the fortunate ones. Rooms have access to free wi-fi which is a must for me to update my fb status and write my blog.

The room is quite small but can still provided enough space for praying and luggages.  The wall is adorned with a picture showing a part of the hotel construction process (below) 

The morning fog was so thick that we couldn't make out the awesome rock formation behind the hotel.  This part of the hotel is the dining area. The morning balloon ride plan was also postponed to the evening because of the fog.

 First night Dinner. I noticed that most hotels we went to didn't really care about the appearance of the fruits they put on the buffet tables. If you are the health conscious person, then the fish is for you. As for me, an Asian, the fish was so tasteless I cried out in silent for the Malaysian 'sambal'

 A healthy breakfast (middle and bottom were mine).

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We didn't go far in there because the space is so small that we couldn't move much. It was crowded down there.

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Gerome Open Air Museum. 

The staircase leads to a small church.

Living spaces were carved into the soft rocks providing sanctuaries to the people in the region from their 'enemies'. 

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 The happy jewelry man and the happy me

The cave restaurant where we had our lunch.

After lunch, we made our way to the Pasabag Valley but before that we had this..yeay :)

 He sold the ice-cream in three flavors, vanilla, choc and pistachio and we could actually bit into this goat milk ice-cream 

 A special ice-cream treat for the birthday girl and for the rest of us from Nicki

On the way to the Valley, we had an eyeful of these but OMG it's expensive to go up there. USD200 per person. More than half of us went up anyway.  :))

Pasabag Valley

Air balloon over the Pasabag Valley

I wanted to buy one of these but it would just added to the luggage weight.

 Valley of Imagination. The image of a camel (above)

After fetching our friends from their balloon trip, we visited the hand-made carpet center of Golden Yarn.

The carpet that we were looking at was finished in a year by two persons and the price? Way beyond our asking price. They were so eager to sell but we ended up buying nothing. Not one of our needs, anyway.

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We checked out on the second day for Ankara, the capital of Turkey but before that we went to the Vannessa pottery or ceramics factory and sales center . No photograph taking was allowed in the showrooms.

Once, one of the requirement for the man before he get hitched was a skill in pottery making. The one on the arm of the man, the wine jug, is the hardest and the longest to make. In Turkey, more expensive ceramics are made of white clay while the cheaper ones are made of red clay. At Vannessa, we watched a few demonstrations in making pottery, ceramic plates, and painting them. My husband bought 2 decorated plates of the 16th century design), 2 ‘wine’ jugs and several coasters (TL15 each). The salesman showed us how the designs shined in the dark. Beautiful. Later at home however, we thought them to be very expensive compared with the ones in the Istanbul Grand Bazaar. Very few will notice the difference, anyway (unless they put off the lights :D).

In the Turkish culture, a man and a woman can only get married after they mastered the skill of pottery making and carpet weaving, respectively. 

After visiting Vanessa Ceramics, we set off to Ankara on a 4 hour-journey. It was a foggy 5 degree celsius morning even though it was already 10 o’clock.

The scenery on our way to Ankara

Thank you for reading and visit me again.