Rock spotting

 

We are already at the stage of finding it difficult to remember where we were and what we were doing yesterday - it happens every time we set off, so much to see and often to do as well - and we have to get to the next stop too. And never ask us what the hotel room number was and where we stayed yesterday. This year's hotel survey has nonetheless yielded that the majority of porcelain ware is Vitro, whilst the hardware is Hans Grohe. Maybe if we mention it on the blog we will get some sponsorship?

We are zig-zagging across Turkey generally heading East, but with either a decent day's ride or something to see at the day's destination the plan. Safranbolu to Cappadocia hit both objectives. We set off early - weather tends to be better in the morning at present and we had a 100km ride on a single track B road or whatever the equivalent is. Plenty of scenery and the opportunity to round the edges off the tyres (a little bit, let's not exaggerate). In some ways the scenery is very Alpine, except when you come to a small village there is always a double take, as there is a minaret standing proud where you would be expecting the church steeple.
 

Having set off early - and made good progress - we allowed ourselves a morning tea and coffee and baklava stop. And a lunchtime kebab at midday later. We are really getting in the swing of this.
 

The afternoon we have more scenery - and good weather - and we hit Cappadocia and its limestone rock formations. This is what we have come to see.

 

We are staying two nights in Cappadocia as we are doing what one is supposed to do, sunrise hot air ballooning. And the other thing to do here is to stay in a rock cave hotel. So that's what we did. Genuine 100% rock cave with a tunnel to get to it that didn't quite fit a 6'3" frame. The structure was sound - one couldn't get a hand in the cracks in the rock that was the ceiling. The bedside lamps were in niches carved in the rock with nice carved architraving. All the electrics were hidden in the floor beneath the floor tiles - the Building Engineer was desperate to investigate the soil stack and how that worked out in the rock but was restrained from pulling the bathroom apart.  Photos do the rest of the talking.

 

As the sunrise ballooning was, obviously, at sunrise we had the rest of the day to rock spot. It seems that the ancients not only buried into the rock above ground but also below, as there are also underground cities to visit and so we did. The one we visited had eight underground storeys and 10% of the underground rooms and passages were open for visiting. The blurb on the tourist panel outside announced that this particular underground city would have housed up to 30,000 people. This seemed a tad unlikely to us and will need checking up on afterwards, Derinkuyu. The passages were quite small too - the bumps on the head are still there.