My last stop on the Mediterranean coast was Antalya. Antalya is a much larger city than most of the other recent stops had been, and so it has a refreshing non-touristiness outside of the main tourist district of the old town. I staid in a beautiful pension situated in an old Ottoman house in the middle of the old town. Antalya felt even hotter than the other coastal cities, because it was really humid, so I did some more things inside to escape the heat: I visited the beautiful Antalya Museum, which has both historic and ethnographic exhibits, and a fantastic audio guide. Also, I went to a Hamam and got a traditional Turkish bath, including being washed, massaged, and repeatedly splashed with warm or cold water by the Turkish bather – quite an experience!
From Antalya, I took a plane to Ankara and from there a bus to Ürgüp in Cappadocia. Cappadocia is revered for its beautiful rock landscape, formed by a volcanic eruption several thousands of years ago. The rocks make for a scenery that looks like a foreign planet in a Science Fiction movie. It is stunning how this country has so many exceptional natural sights. In addition to the natural beauty, many of the rocks contain homesteads and churches carved in the rocks. I went to see many of them at the Göreme Open Air museum – especially the wall frescoes in the dimly lit rock churches I found very fascinating. In the evening of the same day, I went to Mustafapaşa, a small former Greek town, which is pretty but rather unspectacular.
On the last day in Cappadocia, I went for a hike through the Devrent Valley, which is situated north of Ürgüp and boasts a lot of very strange, otherworldly rock formations. The rocks vary from giant mushrooms to wavy patterns to whole fields of cylindrical rocks that look as if a once great city had molten.
The next step on the travel route is Safranbolu, an old Ottoman town, and then as the last stop Ankara.
Some pictures follow.
Tags: Summer Break, Travel, Turkey