Day 120 – We love being on organised tours

Göreme - Caravanserai Hotel

As the distances around the sights of Cappadocia are quite large, we decided to sign up for a tour – not our usual style but sometimes it’s the best option.

It wasn’t a good start however - first stop a photo opportunity at a panoramic spot - that just happened to have lots of souvenir shops – fancy that! Great view, but 3 minutes was enough, we didn’t need a whole 15 minutes.

Second stop was Derinkuyi Underground City, an amazing place built all underground on 8 levels, but for some reason we had to have a 10 minute “break” first. The city consisted of long steep narrow tunnels, an amazing way to live and hide from enemies, we found it very interesting. Being underground it was nice and cool – though one girl on our tour asked the guide if it was because of air conditioning! After this, another 10 minute “break” – by now we had worked out that the “breaks” were cigarette stops for our guide, who like most Turkish smoked incessantly.

Next stop was Ihlara Gorge, a lovely walk along a river between some sheer rock walls either side. We’d only been going about 10 minutes when we had to have another smoko break. We continued the walk, which was very pleasant with the running water, wildflowers and caves in the rocks, until we reached our lunch stop on the river, which although nice was way too long.

Next stop was Selime Monastery, a really interesting series of churches and caves. We were given a total of 30 minutes to climb up, look around, then climb back down – nowhere near enough time, and all our guide did was lead us up the path – it seemed every other tour group had a guide who explained what they were seeing – we always seem to get the dud guide.

Then off to a jewellery shop where we were shown expensive turquoise and other semi-precious stones in various designs. We’d had enough after about 5 minutes, but we ended up staying for ages. In fact, we spent more time here than at any of the other attractions. We exited the shop waited around outside for the rest of the group, and we finally headed to the last stop  - another panoramic view with of course another smoko break amongst the souvenir shops.

So we managed to fit about 2 hours of decent sightseeing into about  8+ hours of elapsed time ….. it might be a while before we decide to brave another organised tour!

On our return we headed to our favourite coffee/wine place for more backgammon. Backgammon is really big in Turkey - most bars and cafes have a backgammon set. This time the owner's father decided to "observe" our game. Initially he just gave us hints on where to move our pieces, but eventually he took to moving them for us - until it reached the point where he was pretty much playing against himself, we were just throwing the dice for him!