Kapadokya Kısın or Cappadocia in Winter

On the top of the never ending hill, lounging in the mud after feasting on a leftover bread crust.

On the lookout for bicycle chasing dogs and speeding trucks

We wanted to visit the underground city of Derinkuyu. It's over 30 k away from where we were staying though, and it ended up being our best and cheapest transportation option to just rent bicycles. So we got bicycles, and a map which looked like it was drawn by the most talented 3rd grader at the local school. Anyway, needless to say, we ended up not lost, but definitely taking the long way around through an industrial center, the muddy streets of small villages, and along a rocky highway shoulder next to high velocity traffic. Also, despite biking in a circle, we always were biking uphill. We're not sure how that worked. Anyway - we didn't make it to the underground city, we did get a nice 20 k or so loop of some of rural central Turkey with only a few instances of attacking dogs and strange activites.

It's all mine! (Lucky us walking is free!)

There were many open graves around the old churches and dwellings of the museum. Most of them were empty, however some became temporarily occupied much to the amusement of Asian onlookers.

Overlooking a valley filled with the classic fairy chimneys of Kapadokya

We tried to take a passably decent photograph of the two of us ... this is about as close as we got.

This is just to show that it was cold when we were here - there was snow on the ground and temperatures stayed around freezing most of the time. The heat in our pansiyon was on though, which was handy, and many restaurants had wood stoves we sat next to while we ate, staying just far away enough to keep from completely melting our clothes off.

A two story church cut into the rock, complete with columns and painting and over 900 years old!

Bryan smiling it up in a window between underground rooms in the Göreme Outdoor Museum

Staring down an ancient wall in an 11th century underground church.

Bryan and I left Istanbul at 9 or 10 pm on the bus, and only 10 hours and a few 3 am stops later we arrived in Göreme, the backpacking capital of Kapadokya. Kapadokya is a region of Turkey famous for its strange rock formations referred to in English as fairy chimneys. The area was used as a hiding spot for Christians from persecution during the 11th to 13th centuries or so, and is filled with all their old dwellings, which were carved out of the rock. A few are even still used today by Turks still living here.

We finally found a pansiyon that was open (a lot closes down for the winter) and then we went exploring. We went to the outdoor museum, which has over a dozen churches carved into the rock and lots of other rooms and things, still in pretty good shape that you can wander around in. The next day we rented bicycles and did a small bicycle tour of the area.

Bryan had some photos a friend had given him that she had taken 12 years ago of a wedding party in Göreme. She had never managed to give the photos to the people they were of, so gave them to Bryan. We brought them with us, and in the course of our hour long conversation with the rental guy figured out that he knew some of the people in the photos, and so he delivered them to the family that was in them. Pretty cool!