Cappadocia is an area in the middle of Turkey with the towns of Goreme and Urgup at its centre. These towns are some 50 km from large volcanoes (eg Mt Erciyes – 4000 metres hgh) which 'created' the area a few years ago by depositing some 150 ft of ash, lava, and rock on the area. As the muck eroded it left many valleys and thousands of tall rock structures. Early Christians built many thousands of houses, churches and even vast underground cities (8 or more levels deep and holding up to 10,000 people living underground). Thousands of the rock/ash structures rise out of the ground up to 50 metres like fairy chimneys for the pure of mind – or like very realistic giant phalluses for the others.
But this is not the (only) reason it is the land of the wounded psychiatrists. It is one of the best areas in the world for ballooning over. An absolute must which many hundred people do per day. The many highly organised balloon companies have trouble meeting demand – and hence their charges are outrageous – up to 250 Euro (ca $ 400). They charge like wounded psychiatrists. Our flight was cheap (ha !) at 120 Euro, and was a second flight (missing sunrise) but was on a clear day and was quite superb. Be prepared for the 200 photos and 1 hour video of the flight !
Everyone likes charging in Euro in Turkey so they can hit you with two outrageous conversion rates and fees- first to Euro (which you don't have of course – then to Turkish lira. At the recent psychiatrist conference in Istanbul I heard there was a paper proposing that all Australian psychiatrists should similarly charge in Euros and set their own conversion rates.
OOPS, I seem to have lost communication with some of my audience – but Ruth L did ask me to be nicer to Kitty. Someone has to suffer.!
Overall Cappadocia is an area that you could see in half a day (seen one giant phallus – seen them all, ditto with cave dwellings), but you really need a week or two to explore and maybe a leisurely month would be better. True world heritage stuff.
2 comments:
Somethings are priceless, somethings never change. The standard of humour is very good, don't agree with your targetting.
That is spectacular scenery and trip, thanks for sharing it, this provides good incentives for planning a trip for us. Also I am impressed by your organisation and dedication to this interesting blog. Most of all I am impressed by your support for each other in having a wonderful time together while taking advantage of such a great opportunity, with some light-hearted quips made and taken in good humour. I wish you continuing fun together.
Post a Comment