Cappadocia – Cavusin & Gorem

So our last day in Cappadocia saw us rise at a much more social hour (7am), and ventured off to a place not much visited by all accounts, Cavusin, an old Greek Village. It is rarely featured in travel articles, but our hotel manager recommended us to go there and he hadn’t been wrong so far!

On arriving we pulled up in front of a large rock face that had forced Muslim locals to be evicted from their homes in the 1960’s after falling boulders became a safety hazard. The Christians had left in 1920 after the Treaty of Lausanne was signed.

A small winding path led its way to the top of the hill where the church was. As we started to walk, we passed a small and rather quirky mosque built into the hillside making it possible to stand on the roof. Indeed a lady asked me to take a photo of her on it, and despite thinking it was a tad disrespectful, I obliged and in fact took one of her myself as it made for a really lovely photo!

Following the path we passed a number of cave houses being renovated or with a “for sale” sign up, presumably the falling boulders were no longer an issue! As the path became narrower and narrower we came across an extremely unstable and shaky wooden bridge. With some trepidation we scrambled across it, hanging on for dear life, to immediately arrive at the entrance to the 5th Century Church carved into the hillside.

Inside the frescoes depicting scenes from the Bible were hardly noticeable and in some areas the ceiling was pure black. After the Christians had left, it was used as a pigeon shed which might account for it. But it was still impressive, maybe because of its large size compared to the other cave churches we have seen or because of the supporting columns within it.

Back in the car we went to explore the area around us, and walk in amongst the fairy chimneys, whilst we were away from the main tourist attractions mind you, there were still a couple of the inevitable tourist shops, that made us chuckle at their names!

Finally, we went to the heart of the Cappadocia Region, Goreme. We had decided not to stay in Goreme as it had been labelled the backpackers area and we wanted to stay somewhere a bit quieter. However we did have to go and visit!

Far nicer and more picturesque than the books led us to believe, we were glad not to have missed seeing it. Sadly we had wanted to go back to “Sunset Point” to get some pictures of the village at sunset, but the clouds gathered and sunset was not to be. Lesson to be learned, don’t leave things to the last minute. Thankfully the internet has come to assist….

So that brings our wonderful trip to Anatolia and Cappadocia to a close, back tomorrow to Marmaris and Seaclusion for more adventures.

15th August 2019