Cappadocia, Turkey

Last night we enjoyed a traditional Turkish meal, cultural and belly dancing.  

A new career maybe?  Not!

This morning, early, real early - 4:30! we were off hot air ballooning.  Here they are setting up the balloons-

And we were off!

The landscape is amazing!

Amongst the fairy chimneys are vineyards or garden plots in white, rocky soil-

 

After our pilot landed our basket ON the trailer!  we drank champagne, Turkish style- no alcohol :(  but I guess it was 7 am!  Then we were presented with our certificates-

Later, it was a visit to the Goreme Open Air Museum.  It's a small area filled with many monasteries, churches and 11 refectories (a room used for communal meals).  Lots of churches have frescoes similar to what we saw yesterday.  Most of the churches belong to the 10th, 11th and 12th centuries.

This is a table and bench seating carved into the rock with a frescoe on the end wall-

There were a lot of tombs-

There are little niches carved in the side of this cliff-

Here is a nice frescoe-

The nunnery-

The last event of this supposed "chill day" was a carpet shopping/demonstration.  We visited Mustafa Hilici, the oldest carpet shop in this area.  Here, they do double knots, as compared to single knots.  The red dye comes from apricots, the yellow from saffron and brown from walnuts.  There are carpets wool on wool, wool on cotton and the Cadillac - silk.  The silk carpets are BEAUTIFUL but very expensive.  They have 100 knots/square centimetre!  It takes 7-8 hours to do about 2 inches vertically on a 3 foot wool carpet.

Here is an example of the pattern (on the top) and the loom-

About 50 carpets of different styles and colors were rolled out for our viewing pleasure-

And, the moment you've all been waiting for..... the carpet I bought!  It's about 6 feet by 4 feet and absolutely (as Tim would say) stunning!