Hiro tour let’s go!

Well today certainly felt like a sleep in. We woke at 8am to get sorted for our tour today. There seems to be three options for tours here, green, red and blue. We are doing the green tour today.

Our guides name is Arsin. First stop was a hill looking back over Goreme, on the opposite side from yesterday. The weird fairy chimneys that are so distinctive here are actually all little volcanoes that have been eroded over time. This whole area was a volcanic plateau, but only three distinctive volcanoes are left. Once the Instagram photos had been taken, it was back on the bus to Derinkuyu Underground City.

There are 156 underground cities in Cappadocia, however until recently they were only stories passed down the generations about them. In the 1960s a farmer was ploughing his field when a tunnel collapsed and he found one of them. Derinkuyu is the deepest one

that has been found so far. All of these cities have been carved by hand and they are all connected by underground tunnels, some up to 9km long!

We went down seven floors or 48 metres. No one knows when they first started living underground, but some reliefs found in this city have been dated from the Hittities who lived in Anotolia between the 18th and 12th centuries BC. This would make it about 3000 years old. Persecuted people also lived in these cities throughout the centuries until about the 13th century when the threat of the Mongolian Raiders ceased. There are even stories of the Spartans resting here on their way back to Sparta from the wars with Persia. From studies on the food storage areas they reckon up to 2000 people could have lived here. The tunnels in the city between the rooms can be very small, even Jo had to crouch right down. The small tunnels could be shut off in places with round stones to help protect the people who lived here by making it even harder to attack.

The walk around the city was awesome, if not a little crowded. You can see how people can get claustrophobic down here! There is everything you would need with bedrooms, air vents that doubled as escape hatches, a school and even a church. Really impressive city to see but I don’t think I could spend all of my time underground!

Next was an average lunch, even the

guide warned us it was no good, and then to the Ilhara Valley. The valley is 14km long but we only walked three, nothing too strenuous for this tour! This was a place were the Christians hid from the Romans, a real theme on this tour today, and there are plenty of churches. After Christianity was legalised, the areas where they had been hiding were turned into monasteries. We had a great walk through the valley along a river, however the highlight was the tea rooms halfway along. They were set on platforms over the river that you could dip your feet in while relaxing with a Turkish coffee or a çay. Such a lovely spot! Unfortunately we soon needed to move on back to the bus.

The next stop was Selieme monastery, carved into cliffs close to some more fairy chimneys. It sure is an interesting place. Used by the Christians as a monastery until the 11th century until the Mongolians started raiding. It was then taken over by the local Turks to use as a caravan hotel and as security. This area was part of the silk road and one of these outposts was set up every 35km, the furthest distance a camel can walk in a day. What a stunning cave system, and all carved out by hand! Stars Wars episode one was also to be shot amongst the fairy chimneys here, but the producers could not come to an agreement with the Turkish government on the price!

Final stops on the tour were Pigeon valley (where people made houses for the pigeons and used to feed them there so that they could collect fertilizer), a Turkish delight shop, which actually was delightful, and the standard practise of stopping at a jewelers to try and sell us stuff.

A big day called for a rest before Turkish pides, a type of pizza/calzone, for dinner with a specialty dessert called kunefe, made with cheese. Another fabulous day in Turkey.