Sunday, April 20, 2025
Happy Easter!
I had read about a Turkish sweet yeast bread made for Easter - Paskalya Coregi, and asked the tour guide, Derya, if it was possible to find any in Cappadocia. My idea was to purchase a couple loaves and share it with our group of 24. Later during the tour, we made a stop where Derya jumped out by herself. She returned and came to me, saying she had called the bakery that said they had the Easter bread, but now they had none. Disappointing, but I was impressed that we drove out of our way to find this treat.
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First we went to Güvercinlik Vadisi/Pigeon Valley, with
more tuff-pinnacles dominated by Uçhisar Kalesi/
Castle (begun by the Romans c 3C CE), which is carved
from the largest 'fairy chimney' in the region |
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The people in the region raised pigeons and used the guano
to enrich and fertilize the volcanic soil, resulting in the
ability to develop agriculture, especially vineyards; here
wine-making dates back to the Hittites in the 17-12C BCE |
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| A closer look at homes carved into the hillside |
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| Pigeons |
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| Another Wishing Tree |
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| A stop at a Turkish carpet workshop |
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Working with either wool, cotton, or silk,
these women hand-knot individual strands
using the symmetrical Ghiordes knot |
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The process of creating silk spread from China
following the Silk Road, reaching Turkey by the 6th century |
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Cocoons are soaked in boiling water, then stirred with a sort
of small stick bundle to pull out silk strands; silkworms
create the cocoons with a single thread and if multiple
threads are combined, the yarn is even stronger
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One of the workers is holding the start
of a silk strand, which can reach the
length of one mile from a single cocoon |
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| Fountain design carpet |
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| Carpet of deep reds |
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| The workers kept rolling out carpet after carpet |
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| Tree of Life design |
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The magic of silk carpets is how they
appear from different perspectives ... |
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... viewing the carpet from the opposite
side (not the back) shows a lighter palette |
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We returned to the Göreme Open Air Museum,
the largest religious complex with over 30 churches;
persecuted Christians came here to hide from the Roman
Empire in 3C, and from the Ottomans in 15C |
No photographing was allowed inside the churches and chapels, which were carved to resemble Byzantine churches and painted with frescoes.
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| A nunnery |
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| Barbara Kilise/Church of St Barbara |
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| Refectory entrances |
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| View towards the Karanlık Kilise/Dark Church |
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Refectory rock-cut table to seat 50; supposedly the wall
at the far end had a fresco of the Last Supper |
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| View down from the Dark Church |
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Steps up to the Carıklı Kilise/Church
of the Sandals (11C Byzantine) |
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Lunch in Uçhisar began with meze/appetizers
and Çoban salatası/shepherd's salad |
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| Köfte/beef and lamb meatballs on mashed potatoes |
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| Dessert of Kabak tatlısı/pumpkin "jello" |
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| Viewpoint stop closer to Uçhisar Castle |
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| Uçhisar Castle close-up |
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| There is a minaret back there! |
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Demonstration by a potter at
Venessa Seramik in Avanos |
Here the potters use a kick wheel rather than an electrified wheel to have better control. It is said the wheel was invented first for pottery in 5C BCE, before being used for transport.
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He is creating the four parts of
a Turkish wine decanter |
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| The technique for creating a hollow circle |
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| Voilà! |
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Colored glaze in a bottle makes
applying tiny dots easier |
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| This artist is hand-drawing precise geometric lines |
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| The kiln |
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Uhmm, this three-dimensional plate
is a bit too much for me |
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| Another Tree of Life design |
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Tulip, Lotus, and Carnation design by the
celebrated artist Saim Kolhan |
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İbrik/pitcher by Mehmet Kinik
for 'only' $8000 |
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Wine decanter and goblets
in a Hittite design by Özgür Özer |
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| Colorful Ottoman battle scene |
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| Devrent Vadisi/Imagination Valley: Kissing Couple |
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| The Camel |
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| Tamiko "touching" the tip of a 'fairy chimney' |
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Three Graces: the legend is that a fairy
princess falls in love with a shepherd, runs
away to marry him, and they have a child;
when the king sends an army to retrieve his
daughter, she prays that her new family can
stay together forever, and they are turned to stone
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A sort of dinner theater in the round where we viewed
folkloric dances in a very loud venue |
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The dances were not explained, although this one
with all men had a military flair |
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| A secular whirling dervish |
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| Perhaps a wedding dance? |
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