Day three was the day I had been dreaming of the most. As mentioned on the previous post, anything dug into the ground has always fascinated me and often visited me in my dreams, more often in my childhood than now though.
We woke up nice and early for our visits. Our first stop: Göreme Açikhava Müzesi (Goreme Open Air Museum).
Goreme is believed to have served in part as a necropolis to the people of Venessa (Avanos today) in Roman times. There is a huge funerary monument in its center, tombs and all. It was also and important location for Christianity during the second half medieval times (many Christian paintings, some well preserved, some vandalized for religious reasons, almost all well protected), and was an episcopal center from the 11th to the 13th century.
The open air museum was wonderful, with lots of rooms to visit, ancient refectories, churches, and burial chambers. The view is stunning and you can see even more constructions, including ancient pigeon coops (pigeon excrement was used as a fertilizer) in a nearby yet inaccessible area. Its been a week since I was there and I still make myself fall asleep imagining what life was like for the first people of Goreme.
Mind you, this was only a museum. This area of Cappadocia is filled with these smooth sandy marvels, some built into, some not. After we left the museum we were able to feast our eyes with more stunning views by walking amongst some of these areas. It was a day I will never forget!
The rest of our day included a visit to a Turkish rug place, pretty neat, especially compared to the ones I saw in Morrocco. We were kindly offered apple tea and the traditional Raki (wooooooooo!!!).
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