Friday 25 September

Today the destination was travel to Egirdir, a small fishing village on a peninsula jutting into an inland lake.

First stop on the way was at Sultanhani to look at the largest caravanserai in the world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At Konya, we went to the Mevlana  Museum and Mausoleum which was filled with many Muslims still celebrating the holiday. It was informative and the old rooms were used to show the living of the whirling dervishes. Headwear for women and covered shoes were required to enter the building which contained the sarcophagus for the body of Rumi, the founder of the dervishes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was a big day of driving for our driver Umet who fell asleep at the table over dinner. The wife of the restaurant owner cooked us some delicious lentil soup so we asked for the recipe and it was delivered in Turkish for translation by genghis. The small township of Egirdir was cobbled streets with old stone buildings. Our hotel was the hotel Merci and we opened the windows to let the fresh breeze through

Thursday 24 September (continued)

More excitement followed with a visit to the Derinkuyu underground city. Paul went down all eight levels and there were a lot of skinny tunnels with steps and also sections where it was necessary to bend over to go forward.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the afternoon we visited Pigeon Valley and some other valleys. Once again the landscape had been carved into and the ‘fairy chimneys’ and other rock formations looked like big mushrooms and landscaped houses. Cappadocia is magical!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was a big day but more to come with a night treat from a Turkish dance show including a performance to show the whirling dervishes. Paul had his first taste of raki which is an aniseed-tasting alcohol +++ drink like ouzo which is mixed with water and becomes cloudy.

Thursday 24 September
I didn’t realise the best day in turkey was about to happen! We began in a cave restaurant for apple tea.

This morning was an early start again for an amazing experience in Cappadocia … Hot air ballooning. Watching the balloons being blown up was exciting with about one hundred balloons eventually ending up in the air.

There were different sizes with baskets to take different numbers of passengers. Our basket had the main central section for the operator and two sections on each side, we had 4 people in our section.

It was an incredible experience… Exhilorating , beautiful, serene and thrilling all at once. The landscape has been forged as a result of 3 volcanoes in the area which erupted and the resultant laval rock has been attacked by water and wind over time. The surreal landscape of fairy chimneys has resulted providing an amazing backdrop to the hot air ballooning. It is also incredible to see the baskets being landed into the trailers directly and then the deflation of the balloon. The experience lasted for around one hour in the air. When it came to land it looked as though we would land on a steep incline but the faithful team made sure we landed on the flat surfaced trailer. Our team then provided us all with medals and champagne to celebrate.