Exploring Zelve and getting into Zelvish mischief :)

Well, it was another great day wandering through Cappadocia!  We enjoyed a fantastic view of the region from Uchisar Castle, finally made it out to the Goreme Open Air Museum, attempted to visit an additional underground city (which was closed and a bust), caught up with our new Iranian friend and continued our fascinating conversations and answered several questions about the United States, and the favorite of the day?...exploring Zelve's open air museum.  Zelve is a valley that was inhabited until the early 1950s...and has the most complex, anti-invader homes...thus, some of the levels of the homes are very difficult to access.  From what I had read, if you really want to explore Zelve valley a guide is highly highly recommended, because rock climbing is involved and many of the caves have traps and other dangers inside.  ...We decided that we doubted within the open air museum confines there were truly truly dangerous sites and explored pretty boldly - we actually climbed up shafts by using little ridges in the rocks and wedging our bodies against the rocks to make it up and down - we had so much fun!  The down side?  We were absolutely filthy in the end...and then spent the rest of the day outside getting sweatier and dustier...and then flew on a very hot plane from Kayseri to Istanbul. 

We are in Istanbul now - spending the night in a hotel very close to the airport and will fly out tomorrow to finish our trek home!  We both will openly admit we are extremely excited to get home to Chance! :) 

Up, up, and away! And all around Cappadocia today!

This morning we did something I have been very excited about - we agreed a few months ago it would be our fifth wedding anniversary gift to each other... and so, this morning, we woke up at four, showered, layered, kicked back a red bull, and headed out for our...Hot Air Balloon ride!!! 

We enjoyed our hot air balloon ride in Cappadocia!  Happy fifth wedding anniversary to us!  :)

Overall we are glad we did it...I honestly wasn't nervous about it...but ended up having quite an adrenaline rush and was pretty nerve-wracked through the experience.  The views were fantastic!  And rising up in the sky amongst the other balloons was awesome!  But...our pilot was a bit of a daredevil and had us dipping between large sharp jutting Cappadocian style rocks and skimming tree tops and then shooting upwards to barely clear whole cliffs.  That part was cool the first time...and then after what felt like close call after close call, became quite jarring.  It was quite an experience though!  :) 

After the hot air balloon ride we  headed back to our hotel (around 7:30 am) and crashed for a bit, ate breakfast, and geared up for our day.  Yesterday we rented a car, today we did an organized hike and tour, and tomorrow we are going to rent a car again.  So today...organized tour.  We were picked up and after a little bit of disorganization on the agencies part...it was similar to the hot air balloon ride...we had a feeling things were really disorganized...and then suddenly everything fell into place and we were underway (and it was organized the rest of the time).

We stopped in a pretty valley for some basic information and photographs and then headed down to visit the underground city in Derinkuyu.  There are many underground cities in the area - they were used back in Roman and Byzantine times as hideouts for the city citizens to evade invaders and be protected - the one in Derinkuyu is eight whole underground levels and housed between 2,000 and 5,000 people at the time of an invasion.  They had everything from kitchens, wine production, a chapel, living rooms, wells, ventilation shafts, etc, all carved out from the earth - it was really neat!  And they had lots of potential traps to halt invaders and tunnels to jump into to escape.


After that we were on to Ilhara Valley where we enjoyed a beautiful, scenic, calming walk down into the valley along a stream to a small area called Belisirma where we enjoyed another yummy local Turkish lunch.  Then we were off to another sandcastle like playground - Selime Monastery - this was one or two large interconnected buildings carved into the side of the mountain - one tunnel led to the next and in many of the buildings there were multiple levels - it was really neat! 

We then had an hour drive back and stopped at Pigeon Valley where there were dozens and dozens of small coves the had been dug into the hills for the pigeons.  Once a year the people of Cappadocia would go into this valley and collect the droppings from each cove/tunnel/cubby to use as a very rich fertilizer for their crops. 

All in all it was a nice excursion that had a really nice variety of activities. We also met a lot of really interesting people today!  On the tour there was a Ukrainian who had emigrated to Australia, a free lance journalist from Germany who writes while traveling and is on the "road" at least six months of the year, and a Greek primary school teacher who had many questions for us.  We had an extensive conversation about teaching work load, number of hours worked in a week, salaries, accommodations for students with disabilities, technology in the classroom - you name it...and he had many other intriguing questions for us as well.  He also translated some of the Greek inscriptions at the Selime Monastery for us. 

After we returned to Goreme, we crashed for a little bit and then headed out to find dinner somewhere in town - we managed to find a very yummy pizza place that had "Turkish pide" or pizza...we have had lots of heavier traditional meals, we were hoping for something light tonight.  When our waiter found out we were from the United States (we have been a lot of places and usually of the tourists, a significant number are from the US...in Cappadocia that is really not the case and it has been awesome to meet travelers from so many different reaches of the world)...anyway, our waiter was excited and had a lot to share.  He explained that he was an Iranian refugee and that people from the US were friends to him.  He told us that recently politics darkened/intensified even more and that as someone who really wanted liberty, he could not get along with the government any more.  He explained that he had been thrown in prison and pointed to different areas on his arms, legs, and chest - you could actually see scars along his arms.  He escaped on foot and fled to Turkey and sought asylum through the UN who has helped him get papers and a job - he heads to Vancouver to be an airplane mechanic in four months (he said he was in university for 6-7 years to become a mechanic).  It was an incredibly interesting story - I would love to share more, but that was all we could understand from him, it was a challenging conversation and a lot was being lost in translation on both our parts...

Next we stopped in a local shop to pick up some treats to enjoy tonight and struck up a conversation with the shopkeeper.  This man had also fled from Iran and is actually almost finished in the process of getting an American visa.  He was a law student who had to flee before he finished his last term of law school - he says things became far too dangerous for him and that since he has left (also on foot through the mountains) the government has visited his family looking for him multiple times.  We had a really interesting conversation about the importance of travel, economics, the Iran-Iraq war, US relations with Iran before and after 1979, censorship, and liberty.  ...it was incredibly interesting!  We are hoping to stop in tomorrow and chat further. 

It really was an awesome day!  We have one more day here - we fly back to Istanbul tomorrow night at 9:30 pm...and then start our trek back to the US on Saturday morning. 

Cappadocia!

We really had fun running around Istanbul (it is a HUGE city with lots of people!). We more or less mastered the public transportation system by the time we left and managed to hit all of the major sites we had on our list! I will definitely post a more insightful post with an album soon...but for now, I wanted to touch base and give an update on our travels.

On Tuesday night we headed to Sabiha Gokcen airport (on the outskirts of Istanbul...named after their first female fighter pilot) and flew to Kayseri, one of the two airports in the Cappadocia region. There are many many villages in Cappadocia and several major towns - we are staying in a beautiful cave in Goreme (in the heart of the region). We arrived late last night and were greeted with apple tea, shown our rooms, and given advice on what to do over the next few days. ...We are actually staying inside a room carved out of one of the many unique rock formations here - all the walls in our room and ceiling have actual chisel marks! We woke up to an amazing "home grown" breakfast this morning - yogurt and milk from their cow, cheese, jams and honeycomb from the neighbor's farm, fresh eggs...delicious!!! And then we rented a car and explored today - it was so much fun! We have decided that many of the abandoned formations are adult size jungle gyms so we have spent the day climbing, scaling, poking our heads out of various windows to play peekaboo, shuffling out onto ledges, jumping over large holes (that could have led to some serious boo boos), and really having a great time! Tonight my dinner was actually cooked inside a terracotta pot and was cracked open in front of me so I could eat the baked lamb, peppers, tomatoes, mushrooms, etc inside - so cool!

Tomorrow we are taking our hot air balloon ride and are hiking one of the nearby valleys to enjoy lunch in a local Turkish village.

We are loving Cappadocia! :) More later!

entering one of the churches

Can you spot Daniel? He is there somewhere! This was our favorite church in Soganli!

We truly saw rural Anatolian life today

Enjoying the view in Zelve Valley

check out that shadow...we thought it was really cool

Exploring Istanbul (Not Constantinople!) :)

For 19 June 2011...  

A little history...

Originally within the Persian Empire, Istanbul began as a bustling crossroads trading town named Byzantion, and later became the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire and was renamed Constantinople after the newly Christianized Constantine.  As the Roman Empire faded away and the last (western) Roman emperor was deposed from a Germanic leader, the Eastern Roman Empire continued to gain prominence and Constantinople became the heart of the rising Byzantine Empire.  The Byzantines steadily expanded, establishing a notable empire and Constantinople was truly the heart of trade, eclectically connecting the Mediterranean, Arab trade routes, Viking trade routes, the Black Sea,  and the Royal and Silk Roads and ultimately the European, African, and Asian continents.  Christianity evolved here, to the point that it could no longer reconcile increasing differences and a great schism occurred in 1054.  The Roman Catholic Church and Orthodox Church parted ways and Constantinople became the heart of the Orthodox Church.  During the Crusades, despite aligning with the Catholics in attempt to mend differences, Constantinople was sacked by the Venetians in the early 1200s during the fourth Crusades as a result in a shift in Venetian priorities (it was a power move).  The Venetians prowess grew and the Byzantine Empire began to weaken until it ultimately capitulated to the Muslim Ottoman Turks who had steadily broken apart the empire – Constantinople was the final piece of the puzzle and fell in 1453.  Constantinople was renamed Istanbul in 1453 and became the heart of the Ottoman Empire.  The Ottomans were one of the Muslim “gunpowder nations” who expanded out to the edge of Vienna, nearly won the Mediterranean (if not for Philip II’s win at the Battle of Lepanto in 1572), and continually pushed the edges of the Safavid Empire.  The empire gradually embraced industrialization and modernized to keep pace with the rest of the world in the 1800s but weakened as nationalism undermined its ability to dominate its outlaying territories.  In the end, internal nationalism pushed for the creation of the nation of Turkey after World War I.  

It is a country rich with history…and sooooo many more layers than I just wrote about and the AP World History teacher I am is loving all of the nuanced layers and dreaming up lessons for the future!  We have been having a great time exploring the city and have done so many major sites in the past two days it is unreal!  I will try to post an album when I can…but for now, some of the highlights include…

SO excited to be in the amazing, AWESOME, unreal, Hagia Sophia!!!  :)

View of the Hagia Sophia from the upper balcony!!

Outside the Hagia Sophia (to take this picture we are actually facing the blue mosque)

The Blue Mosque - exquisite!

Daniel inside the Blue Mosque

The gate to enter Topkapi Palace (the main palace of the Ottoman Empire!)

Inside Topkapi

The Council's meeting room - Sulieman and the other sultans sat on the red couch in the upper right corner of the picture

Santorini – Home of the Black Beaches, Red Beach, White Buildings, and Blue Skies and Seas (Part 2)

June 16-18, 2011

Click below to enjoy our album of Santorini (it's about 80% done...we are working on it!)

Santorini

Well, at this point we are sitting in the Santorini airport for our flight in Athens that will board in just a little while. We will be flying to Athens and then grabbing a plane to Istanbul. We have been on this lovely island for three days and it took me a little while, but I think I can finally say I am in vacation mode. I have that relaxed, laid back, que sera sera attitude and am really enjoying myself.

So…Santorini….it is a beautiful, enchanting island that has something to offer to just about everyone. I was worried it would be too ritzy…after all it is proclaimed as being this posh place of glamour…or at least I thought so in my head. What I found though, was that in reality, it was a down to earth vacation hotspot that could be glamorous if you wanted it to be…but could suit even the most casual beach bum.

We took a ferry from Heraklion, Crete to the main port in Santorini and were not quite sure how we would be making it to our hotel. We knew there was a bus to Fira, had looked up online car rental prices but had not booked anything, and knew we could take a taxi in a pinch. As we strolled the port and passed rental car office after rental car office and dubiously looked at the bus station…we caved to an aggressive sales pitcher who quoted us with a price that was significantly lower than anything I had found online. We asked the big questions….mileage, fuel, insurance, etc..and we gave in. We had talked about renting a car for one day to have mobility and freedom to check out other parts of the island…but we kinda figured we were paying for our entertainment for three days worth of activities (an amount we could easily drop on one half day excursion around the island).

It took a while to find our hotel…but we stopped and asked questions once and realized that our hotel was actually tucked back in a wonderful part of Fira and that we had been unable to find it because the location was actually…amazing. There are three main areas to stay on the island – Kamari (which is a beach resorty area), Fira (which is in the center, is on the sunset side, and overlooks the caldera), and Oia (which I knew the least about but had read was very pretty – but was least centrally located). I had chosed Fira, and we had splurged for a hotel on the cliffs, overlooking the majestic caldera (the volcano that blew a while back) and had a balcony that enabled us to have some of the best seats in the house for sunset.

The first day we enjoyed a lunch in the city center of Fira, right in the heart of tourist land – it all had a very beachy feel. Then we set out to go for a swim at one of the black sand beaches. The roads in Santorini are two lanes most of the time and one lane…some of the time…and they are full of people driving rentals, four wheelers, mopeds, large coach buses (public and resort transport) and…the occasional pack of donkeys, stray cats, dogs…you name it. Things are decently labeled…the island is only so big, actually 24 kilometers from one end to the other (give or take), so there are only so many roads. It reminded us a lot of driving in Ireland where you would just drive and hope that the next patch of signs affirmed where you were headed or told you where to go next…but that ultimately…you are going to get where you need to go.

We started off with a visit at Perlvolos Beach – a very pretty black sand beach, that the local sign had designated as “Chilli” beach – with chili peppers hinting that the stones were hot…and the name hinting that the water is icy (and it was!). I had never been to a black sand beach and was very intrigued at the concept – it is tied to the volcanic activity in the area and the beach was full of really fun rocks – all sorts of different colors mixed in with the volcanic rock. We swam for a bit and then headed on along the coast and checked out Vychado (another black sand beach) and then decided to try to make it to the Red Beach as well. Red Beach was extremely unique and became our favorite beach of the trip – one we actually frequented every day. To reach Red Beach you have to hike up a hill and over a ridge and then down a steep embankment to reach a small isolated beach. The cliffs are a stunning red rock that is steadily crumbling away (it actually had rocks breaking off and sliding down the cliffs while we were there)…the color palate is amazing…red cliffs, blue skies, green and blue water…it’s beautiful. The beach itself is a mix of red and black sand and red and black stones – predominantly red though, and the coast has a thick layer of fluffy, bouncy bleached out palm fronds that many people choose to sunbathe on. It is just a wonderfully secluded, peaceful and beautiful beach. There were plenty of people…but the crowds were quiet, peaceful ones. As I said, we liked it so much, we chose to visit it each day and enjoyed it more and more each time we returned.

On the way back to our hotel we actually stopped at a local island vineyard and tried some of their local wines – and must say, the white wines on Santorini are fantastic! (Even Daniel likes them…and that is saying a lot!) We chose two bottles to enjoy during our time in Santorini and headed back to our hotel to enjoy the “sunset show.” Because we were staying in one of the two towns in the island that face to the west, every night people from all over (I think from some of the cruise ships too maybe?) flock to the alleyways and restaurants along the cliffs…so as we sat on our balcony enjoying a glass of delicious local wine and watching a breathtaking sunset…there were people up above standing and watching the “sunset show”…only in our case, we kinda felt like we were part of the show. It was a lot of fun.

On day two we made our trek to Oia (pronounced “ee-ah”) and spent a really exciting few hours playing the “let’s taking awesome awesome pictures game” and raced up and down steps, around corners, through alleys, perched on ledges, all to try to get the best pictures possible. Oia is the town that the most picturesque photographs of Santorini come from, and ever since Daniel gave me my beloved camera for Christmas and we booked the trip here, I have dreamed of taking pictures in Santorini. And! We had SO much fun! In the end we were hot and sticky, but knew we had gotten what we came to Oia for…and were wonderfully surprised with how enchanting and beautiful the town is…it is decided that if we ever return to Santorini (which we truly hope to) we will be staying in Oia.

Hot and sticky, we headed to red beach for a swim, stopping at various lookouts along the way. We were again delighted by its peace and beauty. After that we headed to the lighthouse on the southernmost tip of Santorini and scaled the rocks for some daring photographs while soaking in the stunning views. It was again a wonderful day and we capped off our evening by indulging in the sunset show from our balcony again and enjoying some truly classic gyros.

On day three we decided to make one last fateful trip to red beach and again had a great time. We also did a lot of driving around to various villages, a supermarket run, and decided to enjoy our last big meal in Oia and found a lovely restaurant with a fantastic view. We did the shopping we wanted to do and capped off our evening with our grocery store yummies and the sunset show again….

Honestly, it may not sound like we packed our days full…but we really enjoyed ourselves. We kept whatever pace we felt like, we swam every day in wonderfully refreshing water, we soaked in hours and hours of breathtaking views from both our balcony and as we drove all around the island, I convinced Daniel that white wine really can be delicious, we ate Greek salads every possible chance we had – and loved loved loved them, we spent hours on our balcony looking out over the water eating breakfast and watching sunsets, and we found a very special place in our traveling hearts for Santorini. :)

Santorini: Black Beach, Red Beach, White Buildings, Blue Skies and Seas!

Standing on Pavalos, one of the black sand beaches on the Southern part of Santorini

Enjoying the very chilly water

See?  all black stones and sand!

Enjoying the black sand beach  :)

Behold, amazing red beach!  We loved this one the best (we have visited it all three days for a nice long swim!)

Daniel before we hike the ridge to get down to red beach

Right where I belong!  At the cliffs at red beach

And this is how we have spent our evenings as we watch the sun set from our balcony! 

More later!  Just wanted to give you guys a sneak peek!  :)

In Santorini!

We made it to Santorini, have rented a car (split second decision), found our amazing hotel and are heading out to enjoy this fantastic island!!!

This is our view from the balcony...

And this is me enjoying it!  :)

June 15, 2011 – Heraklion

Click on the image below to view our album!

2011, 06 (June) 15 - Heraklion

Daniel and I woke up after a night of pretty solid sleep, geared up for our day, and enjoyed a breakfast that included another beautiful view of the Venetian fortress and port of Heraklion. After breakfast we headed down to the bus station to buy tickets to take a bus to see the ruins of the palace of Knossos... I should mention that this was the absolute primary reason we were going to Crete instead of some of the other Greek Isles…and I was psyched about seeing the frescoes among many other things… our goal was to visit the palace of Knossos, walk along the Venetian fortress, and then check out some of the churches and other squares through the center of Heraklion.

There was a strike/protests today and everything around the Knossos ruins is closed. No Knossos. I was devastated. Honestly, I still am. so…while I was fighting back tears of aching disappointment (not really how I wanted to start off the trip), Daniel led the way to the fortress so we could try to find other things to do for the day. He kept apologizing, but it made my disappointment even worse and I finally convinced him that I would cheer up in a bit (and I did…but I needed my time of mourning first).

The Venetian fortress is really cool looking – and very picturesque against the blue water. There is a very long stone boardwalk/jetty of sorts that is really quite long, so we spent a while walking out on it, enjoying the view and the breeze. After that we picked a walking route and set out to hit the major landmarks of the town – multiple churches and squares, as well as a market that sold everything from cheesy souvenirs to whole skinned livestock. We also witnessed some kind of strike/protest parade and then later stumbled upon a square that contained groups of people holding signs, hanging banners, shouting on microphones, and standing around clusters of pitched tents.

Eventually we decided to cave and grab a bite to eat and chose a restaurant along the main road over looking the fortress- so there was a great view and breeze again. And then Daniel decided he was very interested in going for a swim, so the receptionist gave us some tips and he asked the right questions of the right people at the bus station…and eventually we found ourselves at a bus stop waiting for bus 6 to Amouri Beach.

The beach had coarser sand than back home – very odd thermo-layers in the water…the last foot of water at the bottom was quite warm, but everything above it was quite cold. We slowly worked our way in…very slowly, but ultimately it was refreshing . The view was also extremely pretty as the mountainous coast curved in and created a great backdrop for our swim. After that we enjoyed a few beers at a restaurant on the edge of the beach and then began our adventure home – the bus we knew would take us back just wouldn’t show…so after forty minutes we hopped on whichever one came by and jumped off at a stop in the center of town we knew we could navigate to our hotel from. It was a little crazy, but worked.

We came back and showered before dinner and then enjoyed another meal overlooking the fortress as night fell – and now we are headed to bed! We are absolutely exhausted!

We head to Santorini in the morning – it was a fun day here, but I am still disappointed about Knossos. We also looked into trading our “Mega Jet” tickets to Santorini in for a later ferry (we leave first thing in the morning)…but were sad to discover there isn’t one.

The food today has continued to be amazing :) and we really enjoyed exploring at our own pace today (especially since our last trip involved a group of twenty high school students). And! I am super uber psyched about Santorini!

Cheers!

This was a Triumph!

Two pictures sum up our entire exhausting travel from Orlando-New York-Paris-Athens-Heraklion, Crete...

This was our view (from our hotel) of the Venetian Fortress in Heraklion, Crete

As we ate this...we each ordered one of these traditional Greek salads and moaned our way through eating them with a bottle of wine...AMAZING. 

Off to Greece and Turkey! :)

We are off again for another exciting adventure!  After my harrowing school year I spent the past week and a half in a decompression fog.  I spent a lot of time snuggling with Chance and puttering around the house and some significant time running errands to prepare for this trip and my upcoming travel study program in China.  Daniel has been working hard gearing up for customer meetings and several demos – which all conveniently ended last Friday, so he had a nice long weekend off and is extremely excited for this vacation.  But as I have said – I have been in a fog.  But!  After I dropped Chance off to board at the vet’s office (and bawled my eyes out the whole way back home without him), packed the car with Daniel and left our car at the Marriott, took a shuttle to the airport and did our traditional pre-trip meal at Macaroni Grill…it wasn’t until we were on the first plane and I had gotten a nap that it really hit me… suddenly I was filled with energy, a renewed sense of excitement, and felt fully awake for the first time in weeks as I realized two wonderful things…  one, I get to spend the next two weeks with my husband and have wonderful, blessed uninterrupted time with him and only him (lately we’re lucky to be in the same room, awake, for thirty consecutive minutes), and two, I am going to spend the majority of the next seven weeks doing the thing I love to do more than just about anything else – explore the world! 

Flight 1 from MCO – JFK went well, JFK – Paris went fairly well as well.  Daniel and I both managed to sleep until breakfast on the plane – not remotely good sleep…but sleep.  Once in Paris we had to change terminals, but we have since enjoyed a yummy lunch of Red Bull/Parisian coffee, sandwiches on fresh bakery bread, and a fantastic pistachio macaron!  Daniel was instantly a macaron fan. :-)

We board our flight to Heraklion, Crete quite soon and will finally be on the last leg of our journey – we lose another hour when we arrive in Greece, so it will be almost 9 pm.  At that point I think vino and Greek salads will be in order!  

….Get ready to hear from me for the next…seven weeks!!!  YAY!!!