Our Turkish Honeymoon

Hello all! I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter weekend. James and I got up at the crack of dawn to walk in the dark to the sunrise church service. I had asked James earlier in the week if he would go to the sunrise service at 6 with me and he said yes. The night before I double checked the time and when I reiterated 6 am he literally squealed, “You tricked me! You didn’t tell me we were going that early!” I didn’t realize that a sunrise service wasn’t self-explanatory. After church we came home and I got the pot roast ready for dinner (which was my first delicious, not dry, roast!) and then met up with our friends Bryan and Leigh for brunch at the club. When we got home we stripped off our church clothes (wait till I finish the sentence) and played video games and napped the afternoon away. I’m sure you can imagine who did what.

Ok, so I promised you I would tell you all about our Turkish honeymoon! In the center of Turkey there is a place called Cappadocia. It is known for the strange rock formations and cave dwellings. I first heard of Cappadocia from my grandpa, Dusty. He lived in eastern Turkey in…I don’t know exactly when but it was before I was born so I have an excuse not to know. While we were home for Christmas last year he said we had to see this place. He broke out all of his pictures, trinkets and mementos he had acquired while living here. He even gave me some traditional woven “good luck” socks that hang from your car mirror. 

Anyway, Mike and Nilifer drove us to Cappadocia and boy, did it start out with a bang! Just outside of town we stopped at an underground city that once housed Christians fleeing persecution. There were up to 10,000 people living in this underground rock city! It had ventilation, water sources, areas for cattle, food storage, bathing areas, anything you would need to survive, they had thought of.

Disregard the hideous face...Lutfen (please). They used these giant stones to block intruders from entering. 

The church just above the underground city.

After the underground city we went to our hotel to check in and drop off our bags. Mike pulled off onto this narrow gravel road with farm equipment on one side and the mountain side on the other. The mountain side had homes half inside the mountain and half outside. It was as if they their caveman ancestors lived there and the cave was passed down from generation to generation and they wanted to keep the family home so instead of building a new contemporary home, they just “added on” to the cave. I don’t know if even the best author could really describe this scene! Take my word for it, it was pretty cool to see. We got to the end of the road and parked in one of the two spots. We walked through a gate with a sign over the top the said Utopia Cave Hotel. O.M.G. You would never believe there was a beautiful hotel here! The receptionist showed James and I our room which was very nice and then Nilifer and this man began speaking in Turkish. Obviously, we had no idea what was being said and the man looked at James and I and said that we were changing rooms. He showed us to our new room and it was incredible. Like, how much extra do we have to pay beautiful. 

Where is our hotel, Mike?

Our honeymoon cave

We left for the afternoon and climbed into our first caves, was told by a man dressed up as Aladin that he would make all of my dreams come true if I took a virtual magic carpet ride and took about 1,000 pictures of fairy chimneys.   

First neighborhood we explored.

Supposedly that is original paint. I stuck my head in the window and I'm pretty sure it was a community bathroom. There were long benches carved along the walls with holes in the tops of them.

These are the fairy chimneys.

I feel like they should be called...mushroom chimneys instead?

 When we got back to our room there were rose petals strewn all over the entryway, bed and Jacuzzi tub along with kissing towel swans on our bed. Apparently Nilifer was trying to tell the receptionist that they had stayed at the hotel for their honeymoon and he thought she was saying it was mine and James’ honeymoon! I’ve got to say, this place was a lot nicer than our actual honeymoon. Look what a little misunderstanding can get you. 

Were they trying to tell us something?

Our jetted cave tub...sounds ridiculous.

We woke up the next morning and started our day off with a traditional Turkish breakfast. Let’s see, there was such an assortment of things; lots of bread with different jams including rose jam, olives, cheese, a light (and small) omelet, cinar borek (cheese filled roll up), french fries (I’m not sure this is traditional), hard boiled eggs and chai. It was nothing like our heavy and greasy breakfasts. After we ate we went to a place where they made terracotta. In the southwest, we are used to seeing terracotta but this was ‘ricotta with lipstick. Every piece in the building was hand painted, some nicer than others, but all tedious work. They demonstrated how to form the pieces for the famous Turkish wine decanter. It is in a shape known only in Turkey and I looked at James and said I had to have one. He responded with, “happy early birthday!”

Servants would wear the decanter over their shoulders so that when they would bow to the king, wine would pour into their goblet.

After spending way too much time at this place we left and went to an area near the fairy chimneys. This is the first place we’ve seen in Turkey that developed for tourists to view the area but not destroy it! We paid our fee (we don’t mind paying for these things if it helps maintain and preserve for future generations) and when we walked through the gates it was a whole valley full of homes, churches/mosques, stables and graves! James and I both felt like we were in a fairytale walking through this place. It was a strange feeling, almost like an out of body experience, like where the heck am I and is this place real? 

This is what you see when you walk through the gate.

Roped off homes

Amazing church. You can see where they held the holy water (the hole in front of the camera), the crosses at the back of the church and the holes on the right of the picture are graves.

These caves were actually inhabited until the 60's when the government condemned them saying they were not safe to live in. The inhabitants were ordered to move.

This is an areal shot and you can't really tell but this particular grouping of homes is HUGE. We weren't able to climb in these ones for safety reasons.

Mosque

We spent most of our day here and then went to Love Valley to view some more rocks standing…erect.

A structure at the bottom of Love Valley where we stopped and had chai.

Top view of Love Valley

After this we made one more stop at Pigeon Valley where thousands of pigeons live and fly directly overhead. How we managed not to get pooped on, I’m not sure. 

Doesn't this look like it's from a fairytale?

After our long day pretending to be cave people we headed back to the hotel to relax in our cave beds. I find it funny that our ancestors lived in caves and would have loved a “real” home and we have “real” homes and want to live in caves. Again, when we walked into our room to a surprise which consisted of the driest wine I’ve ever had and a fruit basket. All-in-all this was an awesome little trip. It was great to have a personal chauffeur and tour guide (Mike and Nilifer) so that when my parents come, we’ll know all of the good spots to take them.