OPEN AIR MUSEUM GOREME
Trip Start
Oct 01, 2008
1
157
320
Trip End
Sep 02, 2009
Where I stayed
DERVISH CAVE HOUSE
Goreme, Turkey
Thursday, March 19, 2009
It was very quiet last nigh. I didn't even hear the 4:45 call to prayer, Len said he could barely hear it. The sun is shinning in our window and we can hear a bird singing.
Breakfast is good. We can check our emails right here. I have a look at the weather and it is suppose to cloud up and rain. Only a high of 5 today, snow overnight, sunny and cloudy tomorrow with a high of 2. Sure hope this forecast is wrong.
We are going to the open air museum and then the rose valley. It is 1 km down the road, it is a neat walk looking at all the fairy chimneys and the old homes made right in the mountains.
The open air museum has many monastery, nunnery, churches and homes. These are all very small rooms inside. Some of the churches still have a lot of medival fresco paintings left in them. The most impressive is the dark church or Karanlik Killise one of the most fresco filled churches. Too bad on a lot of the lower paintings either the face or eyes have been scratched out. Some date from the 8th century, though the best are from the 10th to 13th century.
We meet a Turkish husband, wife and daughter here, he grew up in Nevsehir but lives along the Mediterranean Sea as he is in the Turkish Navy. He told us his parents and grandparents lived in such caves and how healthy they are. Most homes are 2 rooms, joined inside with a passageway. One room is for eating with a table carved from rock in the centre with long rock benches carved all around it. The other room is square with some dug outs in the walls and a larger dug out at the back. Very similar to our cave room, but we don't have as much black soot on our ceiling.
We stop in at another church, much larger one, on our way down the hill. It has a lot of paintings still very vivid on the walls.
A tour bus is just leaving and the young people on the bus stop to take our picture through the bus windows, then several young men get off the bus and come over to have a photo with us. Only one thing wrong, no one stopped to be the photographer! We had to put our fingers together in a certain way. They all left happy and laughing, I am sure the ones left on the bus watching the whole scenario had a good laugh.
We stop at the souvenir shops area looking for a place to eat. There is one café with a wood stove in the centre of it. We sit by the stove to warm up and then eat. They have apple tea here. It is very good, hot and tasty. Too bad they serve all their drinks in these little glass cups, a mug would have been more enjoyable. It begins to rain, pour and then turns to ice or snow pellets. We put on our rain pants and get out the umbrellas. It stops raining and we have an enjoyable walk home.
We spend the afternoon on the computer in the reception/breakfast area. They have a wood stove here. Most of the heating and water heat is by coal. It continues to snow all afternoon, but melts as it hits the ground.
We walk down the hill to go for diner. We have cheese and walnut pizza. The pizza has a top on it with the walnut and cheese inside. We enjoyed it and talked about making a brie and pecan pizza at home with some maple syrup to drizzle on top.
Bummer we don't have a movie channel in our room TV so BBC it is.
