Walking the Valleys of Cappadocia |
After landing in Istanbul and visiting its sights, the majority of foreign tourists in Turkey make a bee-line for Cappadocia, not only reknowned for its curiously beautiful landscapes, but also one of the cradles of civilisation. Erosion by water over countless millenia has carved the tufa pleateau, formed from the ash of massive volcanic eruptions, into the valleys and strange formations so loved by tourists. The soft rock has long attracted troglodytic peoples who sought protection by carving out homes in the sides of cliffs and even underground, from 18th century BC Hittites to the Christians of the first millenium AD. The latter carved out hundreds of churches and monasteries, decorated with murals and these, together with the fairy chimneys and other water-carved rock formations create a spectacular blend of nature and culture. We definitely had to walk through some of the valleys of Cappadocia. |
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The volcanos that made Cappadocia (3253m Mt Hasan) |
The volcanos that made Cappadocia (3916m Mt Erciyes) |
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Storm clouds over the mosque at Konya |
Ihlara Valley (13 km, 60m ascent, 290m descent) |
The rain that greeted us on our arrival yesterday had passed on and the morning was cool and clear. Today we would walk with a young Turkish guide, Nur, who knew the area but spoke neither English nor French, leaving a bit of a communication gap. It seemed a bit like a local employment plan, but as has been the case, we just went with the flow of things. The three of us set out from the pension and walked through the streets of Ihlara to the rim of the valley. As soon as we had our first glimpse, we knew that this was a walk that we would enjoy. |
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Start of the Ihlara Valley Walk |
The valley, or rather mini-gorge, curved away from us, smoothly cut rock walls lining a richly vegetated corridor through which flowed the snow-melt swollen waters of the Melendiz River – such a contrast from the flattish almost barren grassy plateau through which it ran. |
Deep in the Ihlara Valley |
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Poplar grove in the Ihlara Valley |
We dropped quickly to the floor of the gorge to begin a long meandering journey along its length, as the track followed the river course beneath shady trees, lush grass and herb-fields and a procession of wildflowers blooming red, blue, yellow and white. As we passed, the little dragons sunning themselves on the rock face scattered in every direction. The birds were singing, the frogs were croaking and the bright blue dragonflies were flitting by – it was a serene setting. Over the next few kilometres, we would walk this rich landscape, eyes constantly being drawn upwards to the sight of troglodyte dwellings cut into the smooth tuff walls of the gorge. |
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Wall and ceiling frescos in the Kokar Church |
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Carved interior room of the 9th century Kokar Church |
Entrance to the 6th century Pürenliseki Church |
Interior of the Pürenliseki Church |
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Following the swollen waters of the river, we reached Sümbüllü Church, with its impressive carved facade and multi-levelled interior, before crossing the bridge to check out Yilanli Church, cut high into the cliffs on the far side of the Melendiz. The frescos, displaying biblical scenes were stunning. Heading on, we came across a trackside tea-stall and stopped for a glass of hot çay while soaking up the atmosphere of Ihlara. |
When we left the tea-house, the valley began to open out a bit, with steep grassy slopes, before once again reforming its tight and sheer-walled ramparts, shot-holed with the entrances and windows of houses cut into the soft rock high above the valley floor. We climbed up to visit one last church, Kirkdamalti, again with impressive stucco frescos. The sad part was that much of these frescos had been graffitied by people writing over the artwork – the sadder part was that much of this was 19th century vandalism – modern Greek scribbling over old Greek frescoes. Why would you do that to your own cultural heritage? |
Cliffs honeycombed with cave dwellings |
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Path beneath the cliffs of Ihlara |
Fresco at Kirkdamalti Church |
Leaving the church, we continued on along a wide path lined with coppiced olives that followed the river to the village of Belisirma, where we stopped for a bite to eat below yet more sheer tuff cliffs and troglodyte dwellings. As we ate, we tried to imagine what life was like in this valley 1000 years ago. |
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View down the valley from Kirkdamalti Chuch |
Troglodyte dwellings near Belisirma |
A tranquil stretch of the valley |
Leaving the village, we entered a broader part of the valley, where villagers tended their vegetable plots on the rich alluvial soil. As the valley became even wider, it opened out onto a grassy area where cattle and sheep grazed and some of the locals were having a barbecue beneath the shade of a coppiced olive grove. We were getting an idea of life in the valley now, if not that of 1000 years ago – perhaps it is only the cry of the muezzin instead of the sound of church bells that differs. |
Broad reach of the Melendiz River |
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Once again the valley narrowed into a tighter gorge, the sculptured rock walls dotted with carved cliff-houses towered above us, glowing orange in the sunlight, while the brown-green river babbled away beneath us – it was a wilder landscape than previously. However, just as quickly as it narrowed it opened out into another broad flat filled with vines and fruit trees. In the distance, above the vines, dark tuff cones clustered on the lighter slopes above – we were entering a very different Cappadocian landscape. |
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A short wander through the vines and along the overgrown river bank brought us to a bridge on the main road near Sileme and the end of the Ihlara Valley Walk. But if you ever do this, don’t stop here, as a magnificent surprise waits a few hundred metres up the road. During the 8th-10th century, the Byzantine Christians carved a huge monastery and small cathedral into the heart of the dark cone formations and natural rock castle at Sileme. |
A passageway within the monastery |
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Monastery chambers cut into the rock |
View over Selime from the monastery |
Pillars of the subterranean cathedral |
The interior of the cathedral - carved into solid rock |
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Climbing a passage between levels in the underground city of Derinkuyu |
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A modern cave dwelling - our pension in Mustafapa a |
That night, as we were sitting around a glowing brazier drinking Turkish coffee and chatting with our hosts and some French guests, the owner’s sister told us that she was a trainee balloon pilot with one of the local companies. The fair Nello’s eyes lit up and we quickly found ourselves booked in for a Saturday morning flight, with a nice discount to boot. There always seems to be a surprise around the corner in Cappadocia. |
Gomeda Valley (12 km, 330m ascent, 210m descent) |
A local watches us pass by |
Our day started with a surprise – no tomato or cucumber on the breakfast plate – the first time in our 4 weeks here. After that, things reverted to normal. We were once again on our self-guiding own, as the fair Nello and I set off to climb rapidly up from the village square and leave Mustafapaşa behind. Armed with our copious trip notes, we strolled along a dirt country road across the flat dry landscape, turning down several offers of a lift from passing tractor drivers, who clearly thought us mad for choosing to walk. |
Topping up at a spring |
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After filling up our water bottles at a spring, we dropped down a cobbled road to pass through a small ravine lined with rounded white formations of tuff – the soft rock formed from volcanic ash. It was a taste of our course for most of the day. The road reverted to dirt and led us up on the other side to a high point on the plateau, from where we could see the strangely eroded course of the Gomeda Valley as it cuts its way through the tuff strata – a long and ragged ribbon of white rock. |
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Low valley near Mustafapa a |
Heading across the Cappadocian plateau toward Gomeda Valley |
Continuing on the road we descended steadily, until a point where the guide notes said to follow a track towards a cave and down to visit some old rock churches. We did, but nothing else seemed to follow – we saw some nice examples of troglodyte houses built over a rock arch, but nothing after the cave seemed to fit the notes, so we retreated back to the road and followed it a bit further. |
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Rock dwellings in the Gomeda Valley |
Interior of a rock dwelling |
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It passed the ruins of an old church and a doorway leading to a very narrow tunnel that descended into the bowels of the earth (the small underground city mentioned by the notes, perhaps, but again nothing else seemed to fit).
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The lush valley landscape |
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Passing beneath the white cliffs of Gomeda |
Dovecotes carved into the rock face |
A trogolodyte high-rise complex |
Climbing up to the entry of a house |
The complexity of the troglodyte dwellings |
The rockface troglodyte village of Gomeda |
Now isn't that cute - the baby tortoise I mean |
View back over the site of Gomeda village - carved into the rock face |
Once we finished lunch, we quickly reached the point where we climbed out of the Gomeda Valley on a wide dirt road, crossing the dry grasslands of the plateau and another small ravine. Ahead the sky was becoming distinctly darker as an afternoon thunderstorm tried to head us off at the pass. We pushed on quickly in the direction of Ortahisar village, spurred on by the sight of its volcanic plug castle standing out brightly against the darkening sky and by the odd peal of thunder closing in. |
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Triptych of an approaching storm |
We reached our pension, itself carved into the rock, and settled down on the terrace to admire the many more rock dwellings on the gorge walls across from us. We had just started the obligatory Efes at the end of walk when the first drops of rain began to patter on the terrace roof – how sweet rain sounds when you have just avoided being out in it. |
The castle rock at Ortahisar |
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Storm clouds over Ortahisar |
View of 3916m Mt Erciyes from the castle at Ortahisar |
A ray of sun lights up the castle |
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The walk today was both similar and different to yesterday – similar in that it followed a valley cut through the tuff strata of Cappadocia, but one with a different type of rock, a different landscape and different archaeology. It made us wonder what else Cappadocia might have in store for us. |
The White and Pigeon Valleys (11.5 km, 330m ascent, 260m descent) |
Grey clouds were still hanging around from the thunderstorms of the previous day when we set out from our pension in Ortahisar for the short drive to the start of our day’s walk. We drove by Göreme, the tourist heart of Cappadocia, and stopped a little later at the side of the road running past the White Valley. The day’s goal was to walk up the valley to the village of Uchisar and then back down the neighbouring Pigeon Valley to Göreme. |
We headed off down the wide dirt road towards the mouth of the White Valley looking for a wooden sign that marked the start of the walk, as indicated on our self-guided notes. Alas, by the time we realised that such a sign was missing, we were well into the valley itself, surrounded by some of the more spectacular fairy chimneys of the region. |
An impressive rock spire |
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The entry to White Valley |
A cluster of fairy chimneys |
As directions are of little valley without a starting point, I pocketed the guide and took a bearing on the first of a few waypoints that it gave. We then followed our own course that gravitated towards that waypoint – navigation is actually quite easy in the White Valley – there is a tractor track that leads into a stream / footpath running along the valley floor, with numerous side tracks that climb up from it to explore or view different parts of the fantastic rock forms that line the valley, before dropping back down to this central spine, and so on. |
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White Valley landscape |
Dappled sunlight on the fairy chimneys |
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In parts the creek had worn a 2-3m deep gulley in valley floor, fun to walk along as it passed through tunnels and arches, but fairly restrictive on viewing the fairy chimneys and white rock walls, smoothed and etched by water erosion. Wherever a track headed out, we followed it to get the grandiose panoramic views, and thus slowly worked our way up the valley. |
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The whiteness of the upper White Valley |
The volcanic plug above Uchisar - for 4000 years a fortress |
Graves with a view on top of Uchisar fortress |
Reaching the village, we climbed up a paved road to the square beneath the castle for quick snack before ascending the castle itself and taking in the panoramic views over the Cappadocian landscape. |
The view over Göreme from Uchisar fortress |
From the castle, we walked down through the village streets in the opposite direction before taking a very steep and narrow track that descended into Pigeon Valley, with its garish yellow coloured dovecotes and white cliffs, splashed with patches of purple wildflowers. |
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Reaching the lush valley floor way below Uchisar, we followed the river through a long natural tunnel and past garden plots and tiny vineyards beneath more fantastically shaped yellow cones with troglodyte houses and dovecotes. |
Looking down the gorge in Pigeon Valley |
The layered cliffs of Pigeon Valley |
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At one point we missed a turn to reach a deep gorge plunging suddenly down from the valley – an error well worth it for the view. However, the track ahead had a dangerously exposed section on the cliff edge. We met up with a Belgian couple also contemplating how to get past this obstacle, when we noticed an old peasant – perhaps he might understand and point us in the right direction. We were in for our surprise of the day and a lesson in not judging people too quickly. |
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Ahmet not only spoke English and some French, but he also gave us a botany lesson as he guided the four of us out past the upper end of the gorge and over his “panoramic route” that he had helped blaze. Panoramic – spectacularly so – but safer? That was debatable, as we negotiated the steep track on steps cut into the tuff, a fixed rope descent and a passage across a razorback ridge, all high above the valley floor – my exposure meter was nearing the red-line in parts. It was a great experience and gave us some views other tourists would never see, but I wouldn’t advise anyone to try this on their own. When we reached the valley floor and wide tractor track, Ahmet said good-bye and returned to tend his vines. We pushed on along the track though the tiny fruit orchards and into Göreme to find our pension for the night and complete the walk – yet another incredible and different aspect of the Cappadocian landscape. |
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The lower Pigeon Valley |
Cathedral-like Cliffs in the Pigeon Valley |
The fairy chimneys of Göreme |
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Meanderings in the Red and Rose Valleys (8 km, 290m ascent, 290m descent) | ||
After our early morning balloon flight, we had a late start for our final walk in Cappadocia. Luckily it was quite a short walk that would take us through the Kizilçukur and Güllüdere Valleys, not far from Göreme. Given their alternate names of Red and Rose Valleys, we were looking forward to seeing some different and colourful landscapes. |
View over the lower valley to distant Uchisar |
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The beautiful pink and white banding of the Rose Valley |
Our pension owner dropped us off at the start of the walk at the end of an earth road not far from the village of Cavuşin, to where our guided notes told us to walk. “The track is that way” he said – it seemed to match the notes for the start of the walk so we set off – only to realise that he had directed us to the wrong valley entrance, Rose not Red. Rather than walk back over flat country, and with our past experience of realising the notes were at best a general guide, we decided to climb over the high plateau between the two valleys to find a known point on the track and reverse-engineer the route. |
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Sharp grey ridge in the lower valley |
The site of Haçli Church in a red tuff cone |
Altar area of Haçli Church |
White tuff walls of the ravine |
The known point was Haçli Kilise (The Church of the Cross), cut into the base of a large rock cone. After a quick visit to see its carved ceilings and 9th century byzantine frescoes (just in case we never found it again) we climbed up to a small rock window to get our bearings over this richly eroded landscape. The different coloured strata formed from the ash of different volcanic eruptions were fantastic - greys and whites lower down the valleys, changing to shades of tan, pink and red, with a dash of yellow, higher up the slopes. Feeling more confident about where we were in the landscape, we headed downhill between steep white rock formations into a small, but lush, ravine and a clearly described track junction. |
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View of the track through a rock window |
The Red Valley and Haçli Church |
Ah ha! the Archway - now we are on track |
Having verified the route by locating an archway in the streambed some 100m further on, we reversed direction and started to follow the track, this time with guide notes that matched it. |
Facade of a troglodyte dwelling |
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A decorated dove cote |
Visitors from Pigeon Valley |
A short climb in the right direction from the junction past fruit trees and tiny vineyards brought us to a white rock with a series of windows and doors cut in – not another ancient church we thought. However, on entering the unimposing facade of Sütunlu Church, we discovered the most amazing sight – climbing up some steps we found ourselves in a room with thick pillars, decorated arches and a 10m high vaulted ceiling, all carved inside the rock by hand centuries ago. It was the most unique church we had seen. |
Hand-carved cathedral .... |
.... simply amazing |
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Intricately eroded white and pink ash strata in the Red Valley |
The ridge between the Red and Rose Valleys
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After lunch, we climbed a little further to a platform between the two valleys on the slopes of Bozdağ Mountain, our high point for the day and an opportunity for a 360° survey of this landscape. To the west, the superb colours of the Red Valley that we had been admiring over lunch, to the east the more subtle shades, but no less wonderfully shaped rock formations of the Rose Valley, to the south the stratified layers of the mesa and to the north, a view over the distant whiter valleys receding to the silhouette of Uchisar fortress on the horizon. |
From here there were two options for the descent. We tried the first, but declared it too dangerous, when it started to descend via a one-person wide rock shute on very steep and loose earth. The second was marginally better and we picked our way carefully down a steep and treacherous track into the Rose Valley. |
Dry river bed passing beneath a rock arch |
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The beauty of the Rose Valley |
Light at the end of the tunnel |
Approaching Agathangelus Church |
At the bottom, we crossed some small vineyards to reach a damp stream bed that had carved its way through a tunnel and series of arches – it was our route out of the valley, stopping only to explore the ruins of the 6th century St Agathangelus church, another troglodyte church with beautiful reliefs carved into the rock ceiling. |
The hand-carved interior of the church |
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Cavuşin village - new and old |