Kappadokya

Recently took a weekend trip to Cappadocia, which is only a couple hours away from Ankara. I can't believe I haven't been there yet, it's quite amazing... It's a huge area of really interesting nature with lovely little Turkish towns scattered among these strange volcanic rock formations.

All this formed thanks to the snow-covered volcano in the background, Erciyes Dagi

Kappadokiya, like many places in this area, has an enormous history. It has been inhabited for thousands of years. There were the Hatti, the Hittites (around 2000BC), the Persians, it was fought for by Alexander the Great, it was a Roman province, it was ruled by the Selcuk Turks, Mongols and the Ottomans.

Many of the strange rocks have been inhibited for thousands of years and still are today. The little towns generally have a huge rock in the center, it is full of tunels and is called castle. In some way it would have been easier to just build a castle...

Unfortunatelly the rocks are apparently cancerous and the ratio of people with cancer in this area is much higher than elsewhere in Turkey. Despite this, many people continue living in their traditional way inside of these rocks.


Cappadocia was always a rather out of the way place, no great empires were ever particularly interested in more than trading routes going through the area. This neglect, combined with the influence of an important east-west trading route, meant that number of faiths, creeds and philosophies were allowed to flourish here. One of these was Christianity. It was introduced here in the first century. In order to protect themselves from Arab invasions, the Christians carved out into these rocks dwelling places for whole communities. These included houses, churches, monasteries.. I am standing in one such church on the left.




Kappadokiya means "land of well-bred horses" in Hittite. I haven't really seen many horses (except for the ones for the turists standing right next to the very out of place camels). What is more interesting about the Hittites however is that in their time Cappadocia became a wine producing region (says the Rough Guide to Turkey) and remained so until today. The wine and the local food were great...





I never really drive in Turkey because I am not so good at it in general and in Turkey driving is especially scary. I have been driving more lately but this trip definitely made a difference and I am actually capable of driving in Turkish cities now :))