Selime Monastery was probably my favorite adventure of the trip. The guidebooks don't give it more than a passing mention (it's convenient to tours of the Ilhara) but I'm glad we took the time to stop. It is a monastery carved out of the rocks by monks in the 13th century and includes a large church, sleeping quarters, kitchen and stables. It also includes secret passageways, but the book doesn't say that. I love being outside and scrambling around, and I also love unplanned adventure. The main part of the complex itself has stunning views and of course interesting rooms cut out of the rock, but not terrifically different than another of other sites in the area. We were all poking our heads into dark corners and strange openings in the rock. Steven started scrambling up a little passageway at the back corner of the second story of a church and discovered that it kept going. Ash & I kicked off our flip-flops and we all scrambled up what turned out to be a series of twisting, ever-steeper rock stairways/ladders. We ended up about 400ft up in the top of one of the rock spires. The climb down was a bit nerve-wracking but definitely worth the views. I can't imagine the amount of work some monk put into carving these secret passageways out of solid rock!
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Our last day we had various small adventures planned and stopped by Zelve Open Air Museum, Avanos (a small town know for its pottery), the Devrent Valley, and finally popped back into the town of Ürgüp after a rather ill-fated first attempt at wine tasting a couple days prior. The stars were aligned this time, and completely aside from the un-helpfulness of our guidebook we ended up at an adorable little tasting room. The proprietress foisted some wine on us to taste and it was surprisingly good. Her English was rather lacking so we didn't have much of an idea of what we were actually drinking but after the first couple tastes I was very impressed and grabbed one of the bottles she had been pouring out of. Oh, it says 2000 on there. Is that a year? Pick up the next bottle. That says 1999. 'Guys, this is awesome!'. We ended up wandering her cellar and talking in the special language of gestures that only those who don't speak the same language can for an hour and left with 6 bottles of wine. We followed with a delightful little picnic in the countryside where we drank one bottle, and hauled the rest home.
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Up next: Ephesus!
Our last day we had various small adventures planned and stopped by Zelve Open Air Museum, Avanos (a small town know for its pottery), the Devrent Valley, and finally popped back into the town of Ürgüp after a rather ill-fated first attempt at wine tasting a couple days prior. The stars were aligned this time, and completely aside from the un-helpfulness of our guidebook we ended up at an adorable little tasting room. The proprietress foisted some wine on us to taste and it was surprisingly good. Her English was rather lacking so we didn't have much of an idea of what we were actually drinking but after the first couple tastes I was very impressed and grabbed one of the bottles she had been pouring out of. Oh, it says 2000 on there. Is that a year? Pick up the next bottle. That says 1999. 'Guys, this is awesome!'. We ended up wandering her cellar and talking in the special language of gestures that only those who don't speak the same language can for an hour and left with 6 bottles of wine. We followed with a delightful little picnic in the countryside where we drank one bottle, and hauled the rest home.
Up next: Ephesus!
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