Drawings from Turkey: Goreme, Cappadocia, Istanbul

Drawings and text by Jack Brummet 

[2'x2' surplus hospital muslin with Sharkie[tm] and pencil]

click to enlarge

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Pıgeon Valley ın the Goreme

click to zoom in on Pigeon Valley

Our last trip in the Goreme was to Pigeon Valley. The views were incredible, and the shops pathetic. I mention the shops, because this was perhaps the one time our driver stopped by a site where he might have been im cahoots with the merchants. We were, as always, stalwart ın our defenses against The Merch. The offerings were the usual, and as always iın Turkey, they were not overly aggressive. We came for the views and that's all we took away with us. Selah.

İt was a great road trıp, but in retrospect, having had a car a few days ın Selcuk and Efes, we're pretty good at operating our own tours. But our driver dıd cap it off by giving us a watermelon feast iın a meadow across from the caravanserai.

click to enlarge

Our driver was a good guy, and we all liked hıs grandson Abdullah... Anyhow, I am still a litle out of order here. . .İ have yet to write about our day ın Ankara, the plane flight to Selcuk, or even the really fascinatıng bus rıde from Ankara (thumbs up to Turkish Aır!). And I stıll need to write about Ephesus. And my essay on Turkish cuisine. And our Pensione owner ın Goreme. And, after today, our visit to St. John The Baptist's basilica, and Ephesus, of course, not to mention the fantastic Ephesus Museum.

Colum, our driver, Abdullah, and Del - click to enlarge

We didn't learn much about this valley, but there are hundreds of dwellings carved from the tufa hillsides, as well as a lot of stone and masonry houses constructed as infill (real estate name drop).

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The underground city

--as usual, click all photos to enlarge--

In one of the cave kitchens, four floors beneath the earth

We went on a long tour today, hitting at least five interesting geological, historical, and religious sites. The first stop was the underground city, an enormous cave of interconnecting rooms, four stories of which are open to the public for exploration and to give us all a serious case of the willies. It was fascinating. And spooky. The underground city reaches down nine stories into the earth...a puzzling labyrinth with hundreds of tunnels connecting rooms on each level. Each floor contained dwellings and various public rooms, churches, wineries, cooking caves, and stairways leading up or down to the next level.

A room three stories down -click to enlarge

A ventilator shaft that goes down nine stories

The entire time I was in the cave, I was a little nervous about earthquakes, the possibility of an entire busload of tourists panicking and heading for the exits (the tunnels and staircases are rarely wider than two and a half feet). And then, what if the lights went out?! Without a torch, could you ever possibly escape? Well, as you see, I was a nervous nellie, because we made it out after an hour...

a staircase leading down to the next floor

More tomorrow-- my travelling partners, aka family, promise to pull up their slack and write about some of the other sites we saw and adventures we had today (like an amazing cave church in a remote mountain; a hike along the gorge, and a visit to a caravansary. Tomorrow morning, we travel via bus to Ankara (the capitol) for one night, and then fly off to I forget where for the next leg of the trip. In closing let me say that one thing I've learned on this trip is the enormous difference between a vacation and travelling...I have yet to put my feet up and read the weighty Melville tome I brought along. That will happen later in the trip. I hope!

Jack with a bouquet of wildflowers and poppies he picked for Keelin at a crater lake

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Cappadocia's Goreme Open Air Museum, Churches, and Troglodyte dwellings

A fresco of Jesus in the black church - click to enlarge


A tufa tower with many dwellings. I could not figure out how they got to the higher caves. A local said there hand and footholds and the inhabitants climbed to their homes.


The most famous sight--and justifiably so--in Turkey's Cappadocia region are the thousands of cave dwellings and at least 400 churches built into rock caves. I won't go into the history of the Saints or the story of how Christianity took a foothold here, but it is a fascinating and moving story, particularly since Turkey is now virtually 100% Moslem.

The famous open air museum at Goreme is only about a mile walk from town. It's the second open air museum I've visited (the first was the Desert Museum in Tucscon, AZ). There were a lot of German and Japanese tour groups (including some amusing ones, like a Japanese tour group that all wore matching canvas vests). But we were mostly able to shoot ahead of them, skip some churches and dwellings and circle back later.

The caves are all pretty cool, but most amazing are the painted cave-churches. Medieval orthodox Christian monks (1000-1200 AD) carved the caves from the soft volcanic tufa and decorated them with elaborate Byzantine frescoes that were clearly painted by skilled artists. Some dwellings and churches did have outsider sort of art painted by troglodytes (a/ka/ cave dwellers), but almost all of that art was decorative and non-objective...like you see in Mosques.

The troglodyte habitations in Cappadocia were probably occupied since Hittite times, but Göreme is best known for these 1000 year-old churches.

Most of the frescoes in the churches have been pretty compromised—by wind, water, weather, earthquakes, and (I learned later tonight from a local friend) shepherd boys who used the faces of Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the disciples figures as rock targets. These shepherds had been taught that images in church (even infidel churches) were sinful. Despite all of that, most of theart has survived...even many faces.

The best frescoes are in the Karanlik Kilise (Dark Church), where most of the paintings have been restored (and where I could not take pictures due to restrictions on flash). I think I mentioned earlier that some of the rock towers and dwellings were shot as backgrounds in the first Star War movie. It really is another world here...like something from Mars. Or Star Wars.


Interior of a typical cave dwelling (at least typical o the ones we saw)


Tufa Towers


Frescoes in the dome of a church


Keelin and Del on the steps of a cave church


An explanation of the nunnery


A painting on the rib of a dome


A damaged fresco of Jesus--o0o---