Guess where we are?
We have arrived in the region of Cappadocia,
It feels like we've arrived on another planet!
We're Marianne and Chris,
in May 2018 we quit our 9-5 jobs,
rented our house to travel full-time.
Due to the pandemic,
our attempt to drive around the world has been put on pause.
Finding ourselves in Turkey,
we are going to show you,
the best this country has to offer.
It's our first day here in Cappadocia,
this gentlemen is called Murat, he is a friend of Celal,
if you saw our videos from the car park is our brother in Istanbul.
He's just dropping us off at the open-air museum,
so we can start our exploring this wonderful area.
It's our first time!
The first stop of our tour here, is going to be looking around the open-air museum.
We thought this would be a really good place to start,
because we can learn information.
Walking around we can share what we see to you.
The Entry price for the museum with access to the church just down the road is 75 TL per person.
It is absolutely fascinating,
the landscape and the buildings that are here in the rocks.
It is like something out of a Star Wars movie.
Murat was explaining to us,
they use this kind of structure to build in,
because when you cracked under the hard surface,
the rock was really soft and easy to dig,
but when the oxygen hit it,
it hardened so they're able to create rooms.
Solid rooms within the structures.
That's one of the reasons they used to make buildings here.
Cappadocia is famous for its unusual structures and buildings,
this one is where the nuns would have lived here with very few basic needs.
Wow what a life.
We've come inside one of the churches,
and straight away, you can feel the temperature drop,
and that is the second reason why people choose to live in the rocks.
It is around 15 degrees in the summer,
and in the winter.
So it's a constant temperature,
even if it's 32 degrees in the Summer and in the -10 in the Winter,
In these rooms that they've created it is around 15 degrees.
It's really refreshing to come in from the heat, into these cool rooms.
The structure of the rocks that they've built here is absolutely fascinating.
It reminds me of Petra in Jordan, as very similar carved out of the rocks, but the rock shapes is what makes this place just so magical.
Lets look inside,
How much cooler is this ? it's amazing!
As Marianne explained earlier,
these stones are volcanic,
and inside the stone as they burrowed it out was soft, and when hits the air it becomes rock-hard.
Genius, I wonder how they discovered that?
I is a whole network, a whole city isn't it ?
You can imagine somebody living here,
and having a bookshelf here maybe?
and also I'm thinking the roofs are probably black because they would have had a fire inside,
they would have kept scriptures, and that would have been their table,
so they would have sat here.
Thousands of years ago ! Can you imagine?
It's a network of little tunnels and rooms,
This one's got a downstairs that comes out a bit further down.
This is one of the little chapels that we're able to film in.
Look at it!
There's the old altar,
and it's just all carved out of this solid rock face.
It's just mind-blowing isn't it?
Just the details on the ceilings of the paintings here it's just a really fascinating place.
You can see how small they must have been back in the day,
because even Marianne's got to bend down to get into the church here,
and if you look at my height,
Yes, it's a small door,
but it's strange, the entrance to this little church here,
these were old tombs dotted around,
Yes unusual to think that there's all these old tombs,
these little ones must be for children.
They've got more tombs just dug out into the side of the rock here too.
And so this is the way out from the Apple Church,
You've got to go through here,
I'll film Chris coming through so you can gauge it,
because I'm bent over,
it gets a bit bigger here.
Let's see Chris,
Chris with his dodgy knees!
Mind your head
Look at this !
There is another tunnel, just beautiful.
That was a wonderful walk around the museum,
fascinating all the churches,
and just looking at the structures and a good introduction to Cappadocia,
there are no words to describe it.
Anyway we are heading back to the campsite,
as Murat is taking us up to see the sunset,
Yes, he's taking us to a special place to see the sunset.
And one of the ways to get around all the trails here in Cappadocia,
is to hire a quad bike and there's a group just going out.
It also makes a wonderful place if you're getting married to have some beautiful pictures with the rocks behind you.
Congratulations!
What a day, so we've had a shower, we freshened up
and we thought it might be nice to have a little walk around the campsite,
so we can show you guys where we're staying for the next few days.
This is our little park up here,
and it's great we've got the awning out,
it's really quiet,
There is a bin, we've also plugged into the electric,
because we have been parking in the shade as it such hot days,
and to keep ourselves slightly cooler.
But the solar doesn't charge in the shade so we're plugged in just to keep it topped up.
You have your own light,
so at night all the bugs to the light there, rather than to Trudy!
Marianne hates bugs! Yes I hate bugs !!
What's really cool, you can see the hills, the stone structures just the other side of the fence here.
We're literally part right in in the heart of Goreme,
the location is indeed fabulous,
and I think we're going to really like it here,
not only is it really well placed, but it's got all the facilities that you need and would expect in a campsite,
except it's got a swimming pool too, but we'll show you that later.
There are the ladies showers and toilet blocks, they're lovely and they're open 24/7.
The men's ones are just over there.
They've got this very cool kitchen area,
there's a washing machine that you can pay to use,
and a kitchen area,
we've got cooking facilities in the van,
but a lot of people come in their tents so need facilities.
Then right opposite the main gate of the campsite,
and you've got these stone structures right here look at this.
There's a little group of kids going out on a bike trip there.
What a wonderful place,
the Goreme Camping and Aquapark is perfectly located to explore this area,
because that is the stone and that is the campsite!
And like all good camping areas in nature,
you will always find chickens !
You know Marianne loves chickens!
and whenever she disappears from Trudy and I'm trying to find her,
she's always down this end of the campsite talking to the chickens.
Or the dogs!
Cue the friendly dog !
This is the campsite dog, and he is the daddy !
And when I can't find Chris,
he's usually relaxing in the hammock.
It's very comfortable,
are you enjoying coming into a campsite and relaxing? Yes
I've actually seen vans with these in before, I think we should string one in Trudy!
I could sleep in this!
I don't think it would fit, but we can try!
You can also rent a quad bike,
and this is the bit we like the most, they have this wonderful swimming pool.
And after a long day hiking, this is definitely very very appealing.
This is for you, Thank you,
so how lucky are we?
These guys have brought us up to Red Valley viewing point.
And we're going to watch the sun go down with a glass of wine
and this is what travel is about right?
thank you so much Celal for introducing us, ha ha ha.
So we've just climbed up, how amazing is this view !
This is the place to come for a sunset if you're here in Cappadocia,
How amazing is this we've got Cappadocia wine,
and this area would be amazing for wine because of all the caves that they have.
Yeah we're learning so much Thank You Murat for telling us all these little things.
It's wonderful to have somebody who knows about it. We have our own tour guide.
It is very cool, it's amazing, look at this!
Okay no more filming, let's say Cheers!
Cheers!
oh that's beautiful
It's a place that people come to not only watch the sunset,
but they take photographs, there's a bride down there with her groom, obviously just got married it's that time of year,
taking some amazing photographs with this in the background,
and the landscape here it's just out of this world.
I think the sunsets gonna be good tonight.
Okay so tomorrow morning we're all going on a hike right? yes !
What time are we going? 7 o'clock in the morning, oh my goodness.
Okay so tomorrow morning we are hiking,
so to give you a little bit of perspective the second hill there is where the campsite is,
so we're coming good making a hike all the way down here, this is rose valley here,
and then we're going to walk down here Red Valley all the way around there,
and then back to the campsite.
How long is it going to take?
Approximately 3 hours.
Love you're feeling fit?
3 Hours !!!
can I drive ?
There is a special parking place.
I noticed that you got quad bikes, why are we walking?
No we'll walk, it is good exercise.
It's been absolutely amazing up here the sun is just about gone now
and what an end to a brilliant day here in Cappadocia.
Do you want coffee love? Yes please !
Oh you're still there!
That is the end of the show.
We hope you've enjoyed this episode walking around Cappadocia.
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Thanks for watching, and we'll see you next time.