After leaving Konya we went to the Ilhara Valley where we ate lunch on the creek. The restaurants have wooden floats out on the creek where you can eat at low tables surrounded by cushions – fabulous! The cat in the picture above certainly enjoyed the setting.
Then we walked down 400 stairs to see the Byzantine churches carved out of the rock of the cliff face! There’s still mostly intact frescoes from 700AD! We walked along the river back to the cafe to meet the bus, which was about 4kms. Some people had donkey rides and we paddled in the creek even though it was cold. Really peaceful and lovely, even with sheer rock cliffs with ancient houses carved into them looming over us.
On to Goreme. This is where the fairy chimneys are – apparently when the local volcano erupted aeons ago, the volcanic ash came down to form soft tufa, then the hard lava rock came and capped some areas. Over time the tufa’s eroded except for where the caps were, forming stalacmite-type cone shapes which the locals carved out to form houses. It just looks utterly out of this world. We arrived at dusk when all the house lights were on and it was magical! Lina and I got the long straw and we get to sleep in a fairy chimney in our hotel which is like a luxuriously appointed cave. Wow!
Two Weeks Away 