The International New York Times has a puzzle and cartoons. Plus the guest house has a free hot chocolate machine. Our lucky day.

Topkapi Palace--lots of beautiful tiles

The cistern fr the Bysantine era that supplied the palace with water (now it has some awesome fish living in it)

Grand Bazaar 

Islanbul skyline from the Galata Tower

Galata Tower

Delicious street food--basically fried dough soaked in honey

Hot air balloons over Cappadocia--unfortunately the sun didn't cooperate with photos

The streets of Istanbul were full of people today

Fishing off the bridge

Fresh fruit juices

A band playing and people dancing--we think for a football (soccer) team

Statue in Taksin Square

Underground City and Ihlara Valley

Stone door that would be rolled into place to keep out intruders--it would block the passage way to the right

Narrow tunnels

Ihlara Valley

Fresco in the Dark Church

Mom's kind of a trail--tea, pancakes, coffee

Lunch 

We are back in Istanbul after an early morning departure from Cappadocia.  We got to see the launching of the hot air balloons before we left.  It is quite a sight.  There are at least a hundred launching within a sort time frame around dawn.  Not something we chose to do.  In addition to the cost and the crowds, we have also seen how previously fertile fields have been made into huge parking lots for the balloons to land, all over the region.  Another instance of the chase for profits trumping more sustainable practices.  

The trip by plane to Istanbul was uneventful and we are back in the guest house where we stayed before.  The family who runs it are very responsive and we have learned that the exceedingly polite man at reception is a refugee from Syria, so I am glad they have found a way for him to work and live here.
It is much cooler here than on the Meditteranean or in Cappodocia.  We settled in and then got some breakfast around noon time.  Then we walked through the spice bazaar and across the Bosphorous and up to Taksin Square.  The streets are totally full of Turkish people walking with their families, as are the parks.  There are always festivals of one sort or another and many men fishing off the bridge in the Bosphorous.   We saw lots of jelly fish.  It's time to start thinking of gifts to bring home for friends and family, now that we do not need to carry all our possessions around on our backs.  Early to bed tonight as the day started very early. 

  Last day in Cappadocia.  I feel ready to move on but sad to leave our guide for these three days, Necip. He has been kind, patient, good company, and very informative. Today we started out with a visit to the underground city in Kaymakli, the village where Necip grew up.  It is a maze of rooms dug out of stone and going underground as far as eight stories. While their main use has been for storage and the making of wine, they have also served as places for Christians to hide from persecution for several periods since Roman times.  They are dark and today with many tourist busses around, they were quite crowded. I don't generally think of myself as claustrophobic, but experienced moments of this while underground. At one point we were asked to make way for "problem people" who clearly needed to get out quickly by going against the flow of people back to the entrance instead of descending further. In Cec's words, "I put on my can-do pants", resolved not to be a problem person, and even got interested about the history here.

We then drove south for about 100 km to a less frequented section of Cappadocia, Ihlara Valley. Here the bed rock is made more of lava than of volcanic ash, this leads to steep cliffs with fallen blocks of rock rather than the more sand dune like structures we have been touring the last two days. We hiked along a swiftly moving river and saw a different sort of cave house and church (with frescos). This was a relaxing walk which we followed with a leisurely lunch lounging on floor cushions over the river.

Later in the afternoon we had a lesson on the art and techniques of Turkish carpet weaving followed by the obligatory sales pitch.

Tomorrow Istanbul

Rose Valley

A church in a cave with frescos and carvings

Fairy Chimneys

Carevanserai

Whirling Dervishes

Friday April 25th

The day ended with a 'small world' experience. We went to a carevanserai (a place for caravans on the Silk Road) this evening to see the Whirling Dervishes Ceremony. Beforehand I was waiting for Cecily outside the lady's room and taking a picture of the unusual tile placed on the door to signify it is for women. I heard someone chuckle at the sign and then my name. It was Jan Cohen!  She and Rick are in Turkey prior to going to Israel for a performance of  "Kaddish".

It was a good day. We started out rested and there was enough cloud cover to keep it from getting too hot. We spent much of the day hiking among different areas of "fairy chimneys"--pillars of rock that have been eroded away from a hillside. We also toured a Turkish pottery museum that is about to open and then a workshop with stages of their process. We had a demonstration of how a particularly difficult wine jug is thrown and them Cecily got to try her hand at throwing a pot. This was, of course, followed by a chance to go to their show room and purchase pottery at a "special price". Actually it was a fairly low pressure pitch and the pottery was beautiful. We managed to move on, however, with our purse intact.

Photos from Thursday the 24th

Former castle in rock caves

Hiking down Pigeon Valley. It is known for  all the small caves for pigeons to roost in and make guano for people to use as fertilizer.

Church in a cave

Our cave room 

Thursday 24th

We are in Cappadocia after a long night's bus ride. We continue to be impressed by the bus service--it's extensiveness and how much it is used. Our large bus was mostly full. At the start, newspapers are distributed to those who may want them. (How long it has been since that has happened on a plane in the states?) We stopped about every two hours at huge busy bus terminals to use the bathroom and for the driver and most of the passengers to smoke. There are lots of smokers here but they have gruesome pictures of sick people and diseased organs on packs of cigarettes in the store. Also frequent beverage and snake service (free). Still, bus travel is not conducive to good sleep. One other complaint--we had to pay to for each bathroom visit with Asian style toilets. We were told that even though our bus ticket was for Nevsehir (where we arrived at 5:30am) the driver would leave us off at Goreme (our true destination) which was on the way to their next stop. Well, this did not happen and we were stuck in the Nevsehir bus terminal for two hours awaiting a local bus. This left us as prey for the assorted characters in the terminal with advice and wishes for something from us; when we were mostly tired and only wanted to get to our hotel. The most difficult seeker for me was a 17 year old Syrian boy who is a refugee and has been in Turkey for 7 months. He lost all his family, has multiple untreated wounds and he lacks a passport or the means to get the services he needs. His English is fair and while he starts out trying to be helpful to us, his desperation soon dominates and it is clear he sees us as Americans having wealth and some connections to getting an American visa or Obama's attention. We ultimately learned that the bus he felt we needed to take with him was not what we needed.

We met up with our guide for this region finally as he was trying to figure out why we missed our connection. The landscape here is a fascinating change--marked by "fairy chimneys" which have been used for thousands of years to house pigeons, animals, people, churches, monasteries, etc. They are now caves used for pigeons to collect guano for fertilizer, some homes, but many hotels and restaurants. We are in a "low end" cave hotel that feels quite nice. It's called the Flintstones Cave Hotel and we had feared some tackiness but don't see it. Our guide is great and we walked around seeing different concentrations of the caves which are made from volcanic ash from an eruption millions of years ago. The day is hot and by 3:30 we called it a day to take a swim in the hotel pool and a nap. More tomorrow.

Mom's favorite bird at breakfast

The breakfast spread

A street with many restaurants

A women making us gozleme with lemon and sugar

Tram

Statues at the museum

Antalya beach

We are sitting in the bus terminal, predictably early for our all night ride to Cappadocia. We had a low key day in Antalya and are tired of people asking how we are, where we're from and if we'd like a cup of apple tea - all as a prelude to trying to sell us something.  As we were walking to the tram en route to the bus 'otogar' , I actually had one of my hiking boots polished under protest.
 
As we walked around we wondered at the number of school-age children in the streets and parks with their families. It turns out that today is Children's Day in Turkey. We located a park where there were food and other fair booths and children performing traditional dances. Very fun.

Tuesday April 22

A day in Antalya without mishaps. After an especially fine Turkish breakfast, complete wih copious Nutella and strawberries, we did some laundry at a "self service laundry" run by a women who emigrated from Germany and supports herself with the laundry since she cannot "work" here. Then we took a tram to the archeological museum which covers the region where we hiked. It was good to see items from many of the sites we have been to, and, amazing to see the skills and fine workmanship done 2 to 3 thousand years ago.

On returning to the old city we decided to give the Turkish baths a try. However, as thrifty hikers we opted out of all the "ands" such as a peeling or oil massage. We were in an old domed marble building. Our experience was that we were taken to a room, our towels taken away, and we had a steady stream of hot water to pour on ourselves from tin bowls. This got a little tiresome after a while and our calls to the attendants went unheeded. They were several chambers away watching soaps. Ha. When we finally got their attention they seemed surprised that we were already done. Clearly we missed something.

We've learned to rarely stop and look at shops since, in most cases, you are bombarded with "special offers".

Mount Olympos and Antalya