Goreme Open Air Museum

Cappadocia is best known for its 100+ square miles of "fairy chimneys," those unusual geological formations that, over the past two millennia or more, have been hollowed out to become churches, monasteries, residences, villages, even underground cities; and now, major big-time tourist attractions. Over the ages they served as refuges for Christians hiding from Romans, from Persians, from Muslims, et al. They are scattered all over the landscape, but there are 8 or 10 concentrations, the most famous of which is probably Goreme, and its Goreme Open Air Museum.

Another World Heritage Site

It is difficult to convey the scale of Goreme--it is several acres but few distinct 
"buildings"; this photo show a small bit of the complex

Goreme was primarily a collection of abbeys and nunneries 
and such; no residences, at least in the village sense; here's 
Vicki sitting at a stone refectory table that could seat 40

Some of the chapels were done in very primitive ways; iconoclasm

Of all Goreme's assorted chapels and churches, our favorite was the Dark Church 
(no relation to the Dark Lord, although it did have an addtional 8YTL entrance 
fee); here the 10th and 11th century painting is impressive, even defaced by the 
conquering Muslims (typically, they only scraped away the eyes; later hordes of 
mostly Greek tourists, at other sites, would deface them completely with their 
names and signatures) 

More Dark Church

More ditto, with digital issues

Old guys rule

Ceiling view

One last scene

The Nunnery; now condemned, no entry

Obligatory St. George/snake (sort of a dragon) in another chapel

In the Tokali Church, also 10th-11th, a shade of blue most unusual for the time and 
place

The Goreme museum is adjoined by the usual bazaar of tourist shops, the most 
interesting of which was the wine store; Cappadocian wines are respectable, if 
not yet great; I am enjoying a pleasant red wine, lighter-bodied, fruity; the whites 
I tasted varied but some, especially the Uchisar, were very good indeed; what? 
your local wine store does not carry Turkish wines?!

Camping in Goreme

We got to Goreme, the main destination in Cappadocia, in fine order, and headed to the Goreme Open Air Museum, the main sight, theorizing that we could spend a free or low-cost night in its parking lot. This worked out fine, and gave us some insight to just what a mad-house Goreme can be even in the off-season. Happily, the tour buses left by 7PM, and we had the place to ourselves.

The Goreme Open Air Museum parking lot, next morning;

we are parked, grid-locked, at the bottom left; but it was OK;

we were touring the museum

It being time to wash, water, dump, etc., we spent the next

two nights at the very nice Kaya campground, overlooking

the Meskindir and Rose Valleys, Goreme, and practically

everything else in Cappadocia

Meskindir Valley, from our campsite

A few of the nearby "fairy chimneys"

Not all that far away, Mt. Erciyes, whose eruptions millions

of years ago laid down the dominant surface rock layers of

the area; differential erosion has done the rest; it is nearly

13,000 feet high, almost perennially snow-covered, known

to the Hittites as "White Mountain"; only Ararat, in

eastern Turkey, is higher

The campground had other advantages, including a market,

a rug store (!), and bunches of grapes hanging from arbors
all around; ripe, too

On to Cappadocia

From Ankara we drove on east and south, taking in the great variety of scenery and countryside. Turkey is not a huge country--about the size of Texas or California--but its variety of landforms and scenery is impressive. And so far we have seen only a bit of central Turkey.

Gooseherd

It's been years since I have seen a Gulf station, but they're

alive and well in Turkey

A rural cemetery, rough stones as markers; Muslim

cemeteries do not appear particularly well manicured

The road from Ankora to Goreme, particularly the high

plains, are fairly littered with tumuli like this and the one in

the background; sometimes they are double tumuli (his and

hers?); none signed in any way; must look this up...

Sugar beet harvest, mile after mile

High plains, central Turkey

Hattusa: Hittite Capital

Next morning, we drove and walked around Hattusa, the remains of the Hittite capital. Their construction consisted of large stone foundations and timber and mud/mud brick structures above. A small section of the outer wall, originally 6km in length, has been reconstructed to show what it might have looked like. Unexplained is the location of the place, still out in the middle of nowhere, not by the sea nor any trade routes. Maybe it was the views. Or defense.

Reconstructed wall

Vicki at the entrance to the lower city

Me by the green stone, said to be a gift of the pharoah on the occasion of the Kadesh 
Treaty; why this was not carted away, I don't know

Portion of the lower city

Huge earthen jars

Archaeology still going on: a German team

Some restoration/replacement of items taken to museums in 
Ankara, Berlin, and Istanbul

Remains of original on other side of arch

70m tunnel under the western wall, Yerkapi



Sort of pyramid at Yerkapi

Rugged countryside in which all this is located

King's gate, reconstruction of what is now in Ankara

Vicki by the king's gate

Wall inscription near the royal citadel

Part of citadel

Reconstructed inscriptions chamber; not sure how I feel about all this 
reconstruction; atonement for sins of previous archaeologists/museums, 
I guess; a means of preservation, in the museums, while still enlightening 
the field tourist

We had the place nearly to ourselves for a couple hours--a young woman from Australia was the only other visitor. But then the tour buses started arriving, and we headed on to Cappadocia.

Into Hittite Country: Yazilikaya

We drove east, out of Ankara's rugged landscape and onto the high plains, some rolling, some flatter than Kansas, with much agriculture, mostly corn and grains, and then, after Kirikkale, beets, huge fields of beets, now in harvest, just like in eastern Montana, being trucked off to the refineries. Before Bogazkale, we crossed a pass well over 5,000 feet, back into more mountainous, rugged country, where the Hittites made their capital. The Hittites were an "Indo-European" people who migrated into Anatolia around 2000 BCE and gradually took over everything from Europe to Babylon (which they conquered) to Egypt (with whom they did the Kadesh treaty). Their realm lasted until the 1200s, BCE, when for reasons not well understood, it collapsed. Probably the invasions of the "Sea Peoples," of whom we'll hear more later. Until 19th century archaeology got underway, little was known of them apart from the Bible. Anyhow, the Hittite capital was at Hattusa, and an apparently religious rock sanctuary is a few miles away at Yazilikaya.

Yazilikaya entrance

The Hittites mostly did great reliefs

Offerings to gods

Deities

Soldiers, armies; obviously they were pretty formidable,

having bested both Babylon and Egypt

Making nice with the gods

All this is hewn in clefts in the rocks; there's

Vicki in one of the passage-ways

Foundations of a temple adjoining the site

Over-night parking is often an adventure; the Hittite sites

are national monuments, carefully locked-up at 5PM; it's a

long story, but this night, after a close encounter with

rug merchants, we parked (at their invitation) outside their

alleged rug "co-op"

There we are; at least, apart from the free over-night
parking, we are getting more practiced in dealing with this
ilk

Otopark of Sorrows

Finding places in cities to park a 7 meter rig--just a standard Sprinter, really--is not always easy. Particularly when one can not read the language, know where he/she is, exactly, nor where he/she wants to go, exactly. Thus, after wandering Ankara's usual medieval warren of small streets, markets, etc., for half an hour, knowing we were close to the citadel and thus close to the museum, we finally parked, probably illegally, on a busy street, and I reconned on foot. ("Probably illegally" along with a dozen or so others). A couple blocks past the bus station, I found an otopark, a carpark as they say in the UK of GB, and upon inquiring, and some rudimentary sign language, ascertained that, yes, we could park there; not only that but that we could stay overnight, for a mere 10YTL (7 bucks). Right under the citadel. Ground zero again. Fenced and guarded, and not particularly noisy. As it turned out, the otopark adjoined the city's auto/truck impoundment place, where you go to redeem your car when it has been towed. Thus, the Otopark of Sorrows. OK, I have been reading too much Louis Bernieres.

Right under the citadel; but right next to the police station,

which is always good if you can't find a monastery

Turkish tow trucks are scary; they place four

straps on your tires, then lift your entire

vehicle up in the air and carry it to the pound,

depositing it back on the ground there; I hope

they would balk at a 4 ton vehicle

The citadel, from the Otopark of Sorrows

Across the road from the otopark, up the canyon; can you

count all 47 satellite dishes?