Posts

I had a great day and it's only 9:30am, hike, church search adventure Goreme, Cappadocia, Turkey

Image
 April 22, 2026 John set his alarm to dash out to see the balloons at sunrise (I'm already awake due to call to prayer 30 min earlier) only to discover they weren't flying because of the wind. He asked me what we were doing today.  He fell back asleep and I looked on AllTrails, saw a trail with churches nearby and we set off for Rose or Red Valley. Mostly using Google maps until common sense prevailed, we were we experienced potholed, rocky, active creek bed of a "road" to get to "trailhead".  We both are grateful for our waterproof boots as we walked up the creek bed that is still running days after the last rains. The erosion is sobering to witness.      John did an exceptional job navigating. Car is splattered with mud to rooftop. Then he kept us on a path to the church.   our trail continues    I enjoyed seeing a different way to grow grapes close to the ground, not on trellis Growing grapes on the ground without a trellis in Turkey,...
Post a Comment
Read more

Monastery Valley/Manastir Vadisi, Mustafapaşa, Cappadocia region, Turkiye.

Image
 April 18, 2026 We spent the night in Mustafapasa, enjoying walking around the town as well as to the Monastery Valley. We met two young Turkish men who asked us directions! And we learned that one was from the region.    Appealing scenery that included an information board about the geology that you see at this spot       Since we didn't have connectivity, now that I'm writing, I can't remember the churches you see below names.     It is a lovely, uncrowded walk. There was only one small tour bus of Brazilians and the two Turkish college student mentions above. Nature fun:    Carabus intricatus, the blue ground beetle, is a species of ground beetle found in Europe     Bladder senna    Helpful signs at trailhead: AI overview provided this summary: Mustafapaşa Monastery Valley (Manastır Vadisi), located south of Mustafapaşa town center in Cappadocia, is   a serene, historic ravine featuring rock-cut churches, mo...
Post a Comment
Read more

Uçhisar sunrise, Cappadocia region, Turkey

Image
     After a week of nonstop phenomenal discovery in both Istanbul and the Cappadocia region, we found this wonderful room in Uchisar, just above Goreme to rest and plot further explorations.  Satli Konak offers several rooms, we booked our via Airbnb which isn't often an option and we wanted to use a credit before we forgot we had one. We have relied on Booking.com  One important part of the search is that it offered wifi that allowed me to create blogposts. This hasn't been possible for a few days. The restaurant upstairs also called Satli Konak is a 2026 Michelin mention!  Not why we stayed here, it's a highly rated Airbnb.  We had 4 mezzes (900 TL) and a nice bottle of wine (2200 TL). Our meal was delivered to our room.       We walked around in the afternoon to the wine shops thinking we might find more affordable options; after our 3 wineshop, we decided that's the going rate here and we thought it was very pricey also in Ist...
Post a Comment
Read more