A Wanderers Musings: Cappadocia-day seven: Cities Underground and Hiking: Part One

View of the countryside as we were driving. Looks a little
like Tuscany to me.

This was perhaps my favorite day of the trip so far--and that's saying a lot considering how enjoyable everything has been. We started off with a visit to the Kaymakli Underground City. The labyrinth descends for 8 floors underground, though only four are open to the public. Kaymaklı Underground City is contained within the citadel of Kaymaklı in the Central Anatolia Region of Turkey. First opened to tourists in 1964, the village is about 19 km from Nevşehir, on the Nevşehir-Niğde road. The ancient name was Enegup.

Claire descending into the underground.

Olive in front of one of the stable areas.

The red arrows on the wall mean into the
underground; blue means out.

Bob, Anne, Carol and Liz in one of the caverns.

Crouching down to go through the tunnels.

Moi in a room.

The people had houses above ground, only using the underground city when threatened by invaders, harsh weather, and for overflow from their aboveground houses. Each house was connected to the underground city by a tunnel to allow easy access. The tunnels had heavy round stones used to block the entrance once inside. We couldn't figure out how they lifted this into place as they were very heavy!

The first floor was used as a stable, to allow the animals easy access to the outside. The next level was the Church--this was probably created later when the Christians were hiding to escape persecution. This level also had storage rooms and wine-making rooms, complete with vats for squishing the grapes and a runoff to catch the grape juice.

The next two floors had sleeping areas. All the rooms circle around the ventilation shafts that descend through all levels to allow fresh air in. Some of the tunnels were really long and short, so you have to walk bent over all the way through them. Carol did fine until she started to feel claustrophobic; then she decided to go have a tea above ground while waiting for the rest of us to finish our tour.

Descending to the next level.

Hussein explaining the underground city to us.

Liz in a tunnel.

Peering down the ventilation shaft.

Olive crouching down to go through a tunnel.
You know if Olive has to crouch down, the tunnels
are pretty small!

Claire demonstrating how to tread on the grapes.

Bob going up.

Looking back down into the tunnels.

Attempting to move the stone to cover the door. Apparently they
were a lot stronger than Claire, Liz and Olive.

Looking into one of the storage rooms.

On our way out, we met a woman who was working at a local women's handicrafts booth at the ubiquitous tourist shop alley on our way out of the underground city. I stopped to pet her cat, and we struck up a conversation. She said making handicrafts was one of the few ways for women in the area to earn any money to supplement their families income.

Sweet co-op lady.

Walking through the market.

My co-op friend's kitty.

Cute grandma--she had the most vivid blue
eyes and kept nodding at me whenever
I walked by.

Bob and Anne checking out more Turkish carpets.

Next we visited a Turkish carpet factory where we learned about Turkish rug and kilim making. This is the second such factory tour we have had. We now know all about how Turkish rugs have double knots, while Persian rugs have single ones, as well as many other random facts. At this factory, we also learned how silk is made--from worm to rug. Others in the group stimulated the economy by purchasing a few carpets (but not me Ken; you can stop hyperventilating).

Dye vats for the wool and silk yarn.

Women weaving and knotting rugs. Some of
them were working in silk using over 1,000 knots
per square inch. Because of the difficulty of this work,
they only worked 4 hours a day.

The seal of the famous Hereke Turkish
carpets.

A beautiful kilim. Kilim's are flat tapestry woven carpets or rugs,
as opposed to knotted carpets. They can be purely decorative or
used as floor coverings.

Demonstrating how they brush the boiled
silkworm cocoons to find the ends of
the silk strands.

Twisting the silk strands together before mounting them
onto the spindles.

Waiting for our magic carpets to appear; along with our apple tea
or Turkish coffee in pretty little glasses.

Our next stop was Pigeon Valley, one of the lovely valleys of Cappadocia shaped by the eruptions of the three volcanoes in the area: Mount Erciyes (3,917m), Mount Hasan (3,263m) and Mount Melendiz (2,963m). The valley is home to pigeons that were raised by the local farmers to transport messages as well as for their dung to fertilize crops. Hundreds of pigeon cotes dot the rocks in the valley. There are hiking trails running through the valley, but we only had time for a brief visit; I hiked partway down the valley and climbed up into a stone house. The other side of the house looked out over the lush green trees interspersed with blush-colored stone fairy chimneys and dotted with dove perches carved into the stone. All was still except for the occasional flock of pigeons whirring by.