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