We've been exploring the Cappadocia area for three days now. I feel like I've got a pretty good handle on it. There are lots of carved out sandstone cones.
Some of these can be climbed through.
And then there are more churches than you can shake a stick at. Though while we say churches, it would probably be more accurate to describe them as small chapels, or perhaps religiously-motivated broom closets. Most of them, while very grand and ornate, could not have held more than a dozen worshipers comfortably, which I guess explains why there are so many.
The one thing I haven't seen a whole lot of are helpful signs in English and other foreign languages (or really even in Turkish, for that matter). There are certainly plenty at all of the tourist destinations in the area, but I've no idea how you'd get to them if you weren't from Cappadocia.
I'd postulated earlier that this might be to preserve and protect the jobs of local guides who are thus made indispensable to both foreigners and Turks coming to see the sights, as the tourists wouldn't be able to find the sights in the first place without a local taking them to the nondescript out-of-the-way location at which they're found. Yet it could also simply be that everyone goes by public transport around here - no one, foreign or Turk, is going to actually drive to Cappadocia and then try to drive around to the various sites. They'll just dolmuş.
The one thing I haven't seen a whole lot of are helpful signs in English and other foreign languages (or really even in Turkish, for that matter). There are certainly plenty at all of the tourist destinations in the area, but I've no idea how you'd get to them if you weren't from Cappadocia.
I'd postulated earlier that this might be to preserve and protect the jobs of local guides who are thus made indispensable to both foreigners and Turks coming to see the sights, as the tourists wouldn't be able to find the sights in the first place without a local taking them to the nondescript out-of-the-way location at which they're found. Yet it could also simply be that everyone goes by public transport around here - no one, foreign or Turk, is going to actually drive to Cappadocia and then try to drive around to the various sites. They'll just dolmuş.
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