First day in Cappadocia

Thursday, April 16, 2015

After our hot-air balloon ride and second breakfast, our guide Gorkahn and driver Selim met us at 9:30 a.m. for a full, and I mean full, day of sight-seeing. Selim drove us to the Goreme Open-Air Museum, an 11^th-century Christian complex of a cave-dwelling community. Gorkahn pointed out an area where wine was made – grapes were mashed on an upper level, and then the juice flowed into a lower tank where it could be fermented into wine. We saw potholes in the floor, hollowed-out places that pots could have sat in for serving food. Gorkahn led us to a “refectory” or dining hall where monks would have gathered to have communal meals. We also looked at more than one tandir (“tandoori” in Hindi) oven carved in the tufa floors where food could be cooked. They reminded me of cooking pits that I had seen dug at Boy Scout camp.

The most beautiful room was the “dark church” which has been restored by UNESCO. The frescoes in this church have been preserved largely because there are no windows to admit light. Photography is not allowed. Because of the remote and rugged countryside, this site had been successfully hidden from the depredations of non-Christian iconoclasts. The colors are sharp and clear, even after ten centuries. The frescoes show scenes from the old and new testaments. The portrait of Jesus is strikingly similar to one in the Hagia Sophia, not surprisingly.

Gorkahn and Selim drove us to an overlook where we could see the weird landscape of Cappadocia’s fairy chimneys. We stopped at “Imagination Valley,” where many weird shapes could be seen – a Bactrian camel, a hand, a lizard, a whale and so on.

Gorkahn then led us to Guray Seramic (Ceramic) Collection in Avanos. In a gallery that had been tunneled out of tufa rock, we viewed the family’s private collection of ancient and medieval pottery from the region. We also viewed some modern examples of the family’s unique designs. Our host, a scion of the Guray family, led us to a showroom, where Abby and Sarah each purchased a wine decanter in a Hittite design, with the family’s unique colors and design. Ours needed to be custom-made in colors of Abby’s choosing, and both would be shipped to our house in St. Paul. We convinced them to add a coffee cup for each of us into the bargain. After making our purchases, we had our pictures taken in front of the signature fairy chimneys of Goreme, seemingly a mother, father and child.

 For supper we had testi kebab in the hotel restaurant. The ritual of breaking open the clay pot, as seen in Istanbul, was omitted. Although the testi kebab was good, I felt that the one we had had in Istanbul with Esin was better, more flavorful. Because we had started so early in the day with our hot-air balloon ride, we were all ready for an early bed time.