Breakfast at SOTA Cappadocia was incredible. They had fruits of all kinds, breads, meats & cheeses, vegetables, olives, tahini & grape molasses (their version of Nutella), & more. My very favorite thing in all of my Turkish meals was this special red tomato paste that they put on their breads to spice them. It's hot, but absolutely delicious. I put it on EVERYTHING I ate there.
The staff was so kind & willing to help with anything we needed. They cooked eggs & omelets to our liking, made homemade tea or fruit tea for us, & played lovely music while we enjoyed our breakfast.
And then Erkan & Suloman picked us up for another day of grand adventuring.
We loved Erkan. He was hilarious & told us so many stories about Turkish history. He also laughed when we gave him a hazelnut candy bar from Germany because 90% of all Hazelnuts come from Turkey.
We started the day with a few hikes through the valley to visit some monasteries & churches in the caves.
We visited so many caves during our trip, but they never got old. Every single one was different & spectacular in some way. These caves were built in the times the apostles were being hunted down after Christ's death. The Christian believers ran to Turkey & hid within the walls of its caves to avoid persecution & death. That's why there are so many churches & monasteries in this region.
It was very interesting to see how they lived during that time too. They would carve seats & tables to sit at inside the caves.
Inside the baptistry was a fountain of clean water, hidden just below one of the entrances.
And there were several large stones that the people would use to barricade themselves into the caves while being pursued by the Romans. They'd roll the stone over the entrance & stay within the caves as long as they needed to, sometimes for weeks or months, to stay alive.
It was also incredible to see the paintings/frescos painted on these walls & ceilings of these cave churches. After Christ died, it became forbidden to preach his gospel in these regions, so Christians would paint the stories of Christ on the walls of the caves to teach the gospel in secret. These paintings are 1700 years old & still very well maintained considering how old they are. They used to seal these frescos with the yolks of pigeon eggs & that sealing has kept them secret & safe for 1700 years.
Each church had a burial area too. It was kind of creepy, but interesting too.
It rained on us most of the day, but we didn't let the rain stop us from really enjoying the outdoors. We walked & hiked for several miles enjoying the caves & the secrets they hid.
We kept teasing Erkan that he looked like "Bruno" from "Encanto." He kept doing Bruno impressions during our tours which cracked us up.
Some of the Christian fresco's were absolutely gorgeous.
And I couldn't help but laugh at the fact that there was 200 year old grafitti inside these caves. Who would have though that teenagers & adults wanted to carve their names & dates into the rock wall even back in the 1700's & 1800's.
After visiting several cave churches, Erkan took us to Avanos to get some money changed. They use Turkish Lyra there so we had to get some so we could buy some fun things.
Erkan then took us to view some of the beautiful rock formations of the area.
It was raining pretty hard, & it was only about 40 degrees outside, but we still loved every minute of our day. I loved all the picture spots around the city.
The all seeing eye became very fun to look for around the region as well. They believe that everything needs an all seeing eye on it for good luck. The eye would eat all the bad luck & bad vibes. If you ever had an "eye" break, that means they consumed all the evil around & you would need to replace it with a new eye to continue good luck. I bought an eye to use as an ornament for my Christmas tree.
When the cold & rain got unbearable (it started to freeze), we stopped by a little cafe to try "sahlep." Sahlep is a hot drink in Turkey that is made with hot milk, cinnamon, & ground up root of an orchid flower bulb. It was SO delicious. We ended up buying several sahleps during our trip. It was almost like hot horchata.
For lunch Erkan took us to Akdeniz Kebap. We again ordered everything on the menu & loved every single thing we tried. Most of it was meats, veggies, & sauces put into pitas. All of it was delicious.
After lunch we headed over to the Turkish rug museum. We were very excited to see Turkish rugs being made in person.
We got to sit & watch this wonderful young woman weave a beautiful pattern into a wool rug. Her dedication & attention to detail made it a true work of art.
The silk rugs were also beautiful. They take three times as long to make as the wool rugs.
I had never seen silk worms before, nor did I know how they worked. I was very excited when they did a demonstration for us. It was incredible to see how the silk came out of those boiled silkworm cocoons. The thread was gorgeous & so soft & it was incredible to watch it be spun fresh from the cocoons.
After the silk was spun, they could dye it multiple colors using vegetables, minerals, & other natural colorful ingredients.
Then we got to explore the museum & see all the beautiful rugs & silk artwork on the walls.
They took us to a big showroom where they gave us some apple tea & let us look at & admire all the rugs made there in the museum. Some of us bought rugs, & others didn't. I'm not a huge rug person so I couldn't justify spending hundreds of dollars on one, but some of my friends bought some beautiful pieces.
I fell in love with this beautiful tapestry rug. It was made of silk & was barely bigger than my forearm. It was $16,000!!! Holy moly.
After hours of rug shopping, Erkan took us to a Zultanite jeweler. Zultanite is a precious stone only found in Turkey. It is a colorful stone that changes colors in different light. Real Zultanite costs thousands of dollars, but the lab created Zultanite was very affordable. I bought myself a pretty little ring that I absolutely adore. I love to watch it change colors. Sometimes it's green, purple, pink, brown, orange, & blue. It's amazing.
They also had some other fun stones in this jewelry shop. All of us ladies had a blast trying everything on. I think everybody bought at least one thing in that store. It was fun.
For dinner that night, Erkan took us to his wife's restaurant:
Tandir House of Cappadocia.
It was a beautiful little restaurant in Urgup & I highly recommend it. It has a lovely atmosphere & the food is incredible. I loved meeting Erkan's wife & the staff who sat with us & had a great time joking with us while we ate. We definitely wanted to go back here again during our stay.
One of the dishes is a stew that is baked in a clay pot for 10 hours every day. When it's ordered, they smash the pot & pour the stew out into a bowl for you. It's DELICIOUS.
I noticed some beautiful paintings in the restaurant & asked Erkan about the painter. It was a friend of his who does paintings & murals in Cappadocia. He was a new painter, but his name was getting around the area. He paints very fast & all his paintings are gorgeous. He will come into our story later in our trip.
After filling ourselves to the brim with delicious food, we made our way back to our hotel. The staff was waiting for us & surprised us with a fresh batch of baklava & chocolate brownies. We went up stairs & ate with them & told them all about our day.
We were SO full already, but we HAD to eat them to show them how much we appreciated them making them for us. They were so sweet.
Then it was off to bed so we could wake up at the crack of dawn for a possible hot air balloon ride in the morning. There was a possibility of rain which would cancel the balloons, but we just didn't know. So 4am. . . here we come.
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