On our final real day in Cappadocia and Turkey (not counting travelling by bus to Ankara the next day) we joined a full day tour to see the underground city, and surrounding attractions. The underground city was amazing! Built in 5000 BC, then used by the Christians in 400BC to escape attack from prosecutors,they hid underground for up to 3 months. It went 12 levels down, to just over 80m although we could only go down to 62m. They had a morgue, church, and stables for livestock, air vents which also acted as way of communication and quick escape shafts. It was incredible really, some of the corridors were quite narrow and only 1m high so it must have been very claustrophobic for everyone who had to live there.
Next we visited an old monastery cut into the rock, very well preserved with great views over the valley to the nunnery which was cut into the opposite cliff face. There were numerous tunnels leading from each room, a church, kitchen, and lots of pigeon holes used for messages. Just beyond were the rock formation cones used in one of the original Star War movies. Following a yummy lunch of local trout we walked through a beautiful valley of green bush next to a stream. It was so nice to be in shade and peace and quiet, it reminds me of home. 🙂 we stopped for a panoramic view of the area on the way home, complete with hundreds of pigeons, the sound was pretty cool. We also stopped at an onyx factory, watched them carve and polish the stone and I won myself an ‘Onyx egg’ by answering ‘what does Cappadocia mean?’ ( the land of beautiful horses), but left it at the hostel as it was full off holes, and I didn’t fancy carrying it round for the next 3 1/2 months! That evening we enjoyed our kebabs and beer watching the sun set a beautiful pink against the rock.

The next day was not too eventful except for two things:
– in the bus on the way to Ankara we were served ice cream, chocolate cake and Pepsi, no complaints there! Personal TV’s also a bonus. We have got use to people smoking all the time, so not surprised when the bus driver lights up as he drives, answers his phone, and eats punkin seeds at the same time.
– smashed shop windows in Ankara, loud noises beeping and some yelling overnight but nothing much else to report in terms of the protest.

We made it out to airport at 6am the following day on the public bus no problem! We are getting pretty savvy at the whole public transport business.

It was a long day taking two flights to get to Berlin, 12 hours travelling all up but Berlin was full of character, 1 euro beers and bikes so we woke up pretty quickly when we arrived, excited about the next few days!