Letters Home Part 10: Going underground [ Turkey ]

Letters Home to You 'blog ^ | November 23, 2008 | ian in hamburg

[SunkenCiv]

Remember the two underground cities we visited south of the "central" Cappadocia area? We headed off in that direction, but instead of going to the same ones because they're now just another parking lot crowded with white tour buses, we turned east to explore a town called Guzulyurt. It means beautiful home and is mentioned in Lonely Planet as also having an underground city and church frescoes, but much less visited because it's a little out of the way.

What a delight. Drove through some very stark landscape that at times reminded me of our long sweeps through the emptier stretches of South Africa to arrive at a tiny town halfway up a long hill. I knew we were going to have a good day as soon as we took a short stroll. We were the only foreigners there! We got stared at a lot of course as we sat down for tea on the main square and later at lunch, but the place was so relaxed and we were so happy, we didn't mind...

Unfortunately, an old monastery and centre of attraction was being restored so we couldn't visit it, but that gave us more time to explore the nearby labyrinth of caves and passageways in the underground city.

[SunkenCiv]

I wish we'd have had time to linger more in the places we drove through on the way back. We did stop off to see some lonely old ruins they simply call Red Church. Despoiled with graffiti, it was a reminder of how little regard some have for irreplaceable cultural artefacts.

[SunkenCiv]

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