On the bus at 8.30am after a lovely night in this beautiful place
Just rang you Mum!
Xxx
After a visit to the Turkish Rug demonstration.

First of all, on the bus to the open air museum of Goreme.
Huge, enormous rock formations everywhere and houses and churches carved into the Rock.
Took heaps of photos and just wandered.
The small underground churches were amazing.
They had Roman columns carved out of the rock inside to make them look authentic, if that's the word.
And murals had been painted onto the rock walls inside.
Very special places.
We filed in as a group, only having 3 minutes inside, but, funnily enough, this was plenty of time.

We sat for a group photo amongst the rock formations and a Korean lady came up and decided to be our 'official' photographer. This was hysterical. She didn't speak English and just kept telling us all how to pose as she grabbed camera after camera and took our photo.
We gathered quite a crowd!
Her tour group thought she was hysterical as well.

As we made our way down though the village and stone monoliths to the bus, Emily was grabbed by a man selling camel rides .... just for a photo by the camel.
He had this down to a fine art.
Before she knew it, she was up on that camel and off for a camel tour amongst the fairy chimneys.
She laughed all the way.
And certainly looked the part with the lovely Turkistan headgear he had given her.

Getting off was a bit scary but she laughed all the way to the bus!

Internet:
Sedimentary rocks formed in lakes and streams and ignimbrite deposits that erupted from ancient volcanoes approximately 9 to 3 million years ago, during the late Miocene to Pliocene epochs, underlie the Cappadocia region. The rocks of Cappadocia near Göreme eroded into hundreds of spectacular pillars and minaret-like forms. People of the villages at the heart of the Cappadocia Region carved out houses, churches and monasteries from the soft rocks of volcanic deposits. Göreme became a monastic centre in 300–1200 AD.

The first period of settlement in Göreme goes back to the Roman period. The Yusuf Koç, Ortahane, Durmus Kadir and Bezirhane churches in Göreme, and houses and churches carved into rocks in the Uzundere, Bağıldere and Zemi Valleys all illustrate history and can be seen today. The Göreme Open Air Museum is the most visited site of the monastic communities in Cappadocia (see Churches of Göreme, Turkey) and is one of the most famous sites in central Turkey. The complex contains more than 30 carved-from-rock churches and chapels, some having superb frescoes inside, dating from the 9th century to the 11th century.

Then it was onto a magnificent restaurant for lunch.
As we drove up, the view was breathtaking.
Down this long, deep valley the sides were all rock with thousands of small holes carved into the rock.
Thousands of years ago, the people carved these holes hoping to encourage pigeons to nest in them. The people would then collect the pigeon droppings and use it for fertiliser.
The pigeons came and have stayed. We watched scores and scores of them flying up and down the valley.
It is called 'Pigeon Valley'.

Emily and I were first into the restaurant (still fast) and sat at a table in a glass room overlooking the valley. While waiting for our food, we wandered outside just to look at the sight and take some photos.

Lunch was nice and we wandered up the road to the roadside shop and scenic lookout.
There was that small tree covered in the 'blue eye' that I had seen on the Internet.
Every conceivable size and shape!

Then onto the weaving demonstration and the Turkish rugs.
A huge, huge showroom with young men just throwing out rug after enormous rug in front of us.
All absolutely magnificent.
I would have come home with six if I could have.

Back to our wonderful cave hotel.
A swim.
A relax.
And a fairly early night ready to get up at 4.30am for the balloon ride!