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Thursday
Nov102011

Hotels where we stayed in Cappadocia

Hotels where we stayed

On the 8th of November I was sleeping in a cave!  Now I am sleeping in a 5-star hotel called Sea Life.

The city where the caves were is Cappadocia.  In Cappadocia there is giant rock formations of cones with caves from about 2012 years ago.  The first caves were natural, but the early Christians added on.  We saw one third of an underground cave city and even I had to duck through the narrow spots.  People were a lot smaller back then.  It was enormous.  Up to 50,000 people lived there because the Romans extremely hated the Christians because they thought they would get all the power.  The early Christians walked to Cappadocia in a caravan so that they could escape from the Romans, who were in Italy, Istanbul, and along the Turkish coast.  They walked the whole way!  They had kitchens, living rooms, graves, and churches…everything you need for living.  They would go out and bring baby animals inside and to grow and later kill them for food.  I wondered how they could carve out so much cave for 50,000 people (and we saw so little of it and the violation shafts (editor’s note: ventilation) were really cool. 

We stayed in a cave hotel for the experience.  Very few people get to do it in their lives but in Cappadocia there are probably only 3 hotels that are not it caves.  The hotel owner says that they added on to caves, but in our cave you can see the original markings of where the original cave was made.  And the first night that we were  in Cappadocia (the 7th) we ate dinner on the floor in a restaurant because that is how they did it back then.  If you are in a caravan, it is too hard to bring up to 50,000 chairs, so they used short tables so that they would not need chairs and they sat on small rugs.  I wasn’t too comfortable, but when you are done eating, it is very comfortable for relaxing (and good for stretching out and going to sleep for Graeme).

We did some horseback riding instead of camel riding, because we could not find the camels. 

Reader Comments (2)

Hi, Aethan,

Wow! Sleeping in a hotel in a cave sounds like quite an experience. I hope to get to Cappadocia some day. The strangest hotel I've ever stayed at used to be a Quaker Oats grain silo in Akron, Ohio. The rooms were round and had really thick outside walls.

I've been doing reading at Woodlin for a bit over a month now. This year I go on Thursday morning instead of in the afternoon. Everything at Woodlin seems pretty much the same as last year.

The leaves have been really colorful here. How's the weather in Turkey? Do they have any trees that change color in the fall?

Have fun as you continue your Turkish adventure!

Kay

November 15, 2011 | Unregistered CommenterKay Oshel

Yeah! Aren't caves awesome??!? Maybe we'll get to explore a cave together someday when you folks return to the states. Sounds like a very nifty trip so far!

David

December 2, 2011 | Unregistered CommenterDavid

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