I spent a week in Göreme, Turkey.
Category: travel
Turkish food – Testi
I met Rosie and Patrick from the U.K. while visiting the famed Outdoor Museum, a World Heritage site. A Byzantine monastic settlement, the monks had time to paint their caves.
We drank some wine at sunset point overlooking Göreme.
Then I recommended we go for a nice dinner — traditional Turkish food of this region called Testi.
A mixture of meat and vegetables cooked in a clay pot or jug over fire (testi means jug in Turkish). The pot is sealed with bread dough or foil and is broken when serving.
They were half way complete a cycling trip from England to China. Next up is Iran which they feel will be the best section of all.
Goal is to get home in time for Christmas.
travellers – Maude and Mikael
Maude (Quebec) and Mikael (Finland) met at my hostel in Antalya, Turkey. They decided to take a night bus to Göreme, Cappadocia. I invited myself along.
One night they had the crazy idea we barbecue in the hoodoos.
We walked over at dusk.
This was the very first eroded monument we had visited on arrival. Seemed an appropriate place to cook.
First … enjoy the sunset.
Next … try to get the fire going in a cave. (For all my hiking I’m still terrible at lighting campfires.)
It was a bit of a comedy. But eventually they had sausage, chicken skewers, onions and peppers cooking. We drank wine and some kind of horrible Finish liquor they use to interrogate prisoners.
Maude and Mikael headed to northern Turkey. But I really enjoyed the week we spent together. The three of us are all travellers at heart. Maude had given up everything at home to teach French in a mountain village in Morocco. Michael strikes me as an entrepreneur, traveling until he decides what business venture to launch.
are tourists in Turkey safe?
In 2013, 37.8 million foreign visitors arrived in Turkey, which ranked as the 6th most popular tourism destination in the world.
But tourism is way down in 2017 due to negative headlines in the news.
Some nations are warning citizens not to travel to Turkey. Canadians got the warning in 2016 after the attempted coupe.
I’m visiting Izmir right now.
There was a car bomb attack on an Izmir courthouse in 2017.
Still … Izmir and most of Turkey are generally safe for tourists, in my opinion. As safe as you’d be back home.
cycling Rose Valley, Goreme, Cappadocia
Fantastic.
I cycled Rose Valley out of Göreme twice the first time getting it done the hard way.
I went uphill from Cavusin village to the Panoramic viewpoint.
The great single track is downhill the opposite direction.
I rested up at the viewpoint. Then enjoyed one of the best 3km rides of my life.
Soft, rolling, slippery sliding chutes like this. (No I did not crash.)
Glorious scenery, of course.
The second time I rode secondary highways 45 minutes uphill to the viewpoint. Then tried a different line, this high traverse.
Cool. But it dead-ended at a cave.
I traversed all the way back to viewpoint, then took my favourite run again … a little more slowly this time. Stopped to smell the flowers.
I wasn’t the only one out on a bike. There are guided groups.
Some of the best cycling of my life.
I didn’t take any video. But click PLAY or watch some Rose Valley cycling on YouTube.
I met another cyclist out on his own from Washington State. He’s been coming here twice a year for 20 years (May and October). January / February he cycles Arizona from campgrounds. Lives on a boat in the San Juan islands during the summer. His wife seems to like the lifestyle too.
many are worried about Turkey’s President Erdoğan
The best summing up I’ve seen is a VIDEO on VOX.
Two egos who both aspire to be more like Putin.
Cappadocia, Turkey
I’ve scrambled amongst hoodoos dozens of times. Especially in the Drumheller badlands.
Cappadocia is the same but on a massive scale. With homes, businesses and churches built into the rock.
Photos don’t do justice to this unique environment. Video is a little better at showing dimensions, depth and scale. .
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
ballooning in Cappadocia, Turkey
Everyone has seen photos of balloons over Göreme.
Cappadocia has some of the best flight conditions in the world. Flights take place just after dawn when the wind is low.
Here are a few of my own photos.
Balloons fly most mornings but not all. One night I set up my tent up high hoping to see the balloons from above at dawn.
No balloons that day. Flights had been cancelled.
I didn’t sign up myself. Did not want to be crammed into a basket with the bus tour suitcase tourists.
There have been three fatal ballooning accidents here over the past several years. Still — that’s fairly safe considering the hundreds of thousands who have done it.
Albuquerque and Marrakech are two other popular locales for ballooning.
my Lycian Way hike in Turkey
The trip report is up on my hiking site. A great adventure.
I’m already planning a return to do a couple of weeks on the Carian Trail. Perhaps April 2019.
Winter Sleep (2014)
In Cappadocia I met a U.K. couple who were cycling from England to China. They took a break to visit the region inspired by this film.
Click PLAY or watch a trailer on YouTube.
Winter Sleep is a 2014 Turkish film directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan, adapted from the short story, “The Wife” by Anton Chekhov and one subplot of The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
The story is set in Anatolia and examines the significant divide between the rich and poor as well as the powerful and powerless in Turkey.
At the 2014 Cannes Film Festival, the film won the Palme d’Or and the FIPRESCI Prize.
Haluk Bilginer as Aydın, a former actor who is now a writer, hotel owner, and landlord is in nearly every scene. He is excellent.
The cinematography is superb.
It’s a very long film. Over 3 hours. Long intimate dialogues reveal the characters. Slowly.
Too slowly for me. I don’t have that kind of patience.
