Powered By Blogger

Thursday 30 April 2015

Typical day in a small Turkish town.

1st May 2015
I took these photos on 21 st April 2015 in the small town when we were having coffee and tea ther. I am very interested in every aspect of life.. Some people call me FBI agent... But I love to know as much as possible...


It is a car which usually brings a dead body to the cementary in Muslim religion..







Daily routine in a small town,....

Underground city - masterpiece..

30th April 2015

I have forgotten the first day in the evening we visited the underground city.
Güzelyurt, formerly Gelveri, is a town and district of Aksaray Province in the Central Anatolia region of Turkey, at a distance of 45 km (28 mi) from the city of Aksaray. According to 2000 census, population of the district is 16,836 of which 3,775 live in the town of Güzelyurt.
This is an area of great natural beauty and historical importance, part of the ancient region of Cappadocia, near the much-visited Ihlara Valley.









Caves may have first been built in the soft volcanic rock of the Cappadocia region by the Phrygians, an Indo-European people, in the 7th–8th centuries B.C., according to the Turkish Department of Culture.When the Phrygian language died out in Roman times, replaced with its close relative of the Greek language, the inhabitants, now Christian, expanded their underground caverns adding the chapels and Greek inscriptions.
The city at Derinkuyu was fully formed in the Byzantine era, when it was heavily used as protection from Muslim Arabs during the Arab–Byzantine wars (780-1180).The city was connected with other underground cities through miles of tunnels. Some artifacts discovered in these underground settlements belong to the Middle Byzantine Period, between the 5th and the 10th centuries A.D. These cities continued to be used by the Christian natives as protection from the Mongolian incursions of Timur in the 14th century.
After the region fell to the Ottomans, the cities were used as refuges (Cappadocian Greek: καταφύγια) from the Turkish Muslim rulers. As late as the 20th century the locals, called Cappadocian Greeks, were still using the underground cities to escape periodic waves of Ottoman persecution. R. M. Dawkins, a Cambridge linguist who conducted research on the Cappodocian Greek natives in the area from 1909-1911, recorded that in 1909, "when the news came of the recent massacres at Adana, a great part of the population at Axo took refuge in these underground chambers, and for some nights did not venture to sleep above ground." When the Christian inhabitants of the region were expelled in 1923 in the Population exchange between Greece and Turkey the tunnels were abandoned.
The tunnels were rediscovered in 1963, after a resident of the area found a mysterious room behind a wall in his home. Further digging revealed access to the tunnel network.










Entrance to the underground city



Living on the top can be interesting.. Locals told us that houses are very expensive here because it is a very famous place..


Have a nice Saturday

In Poland 1st, 2nd, and 3rd May are national holiday so I am leaving Silesia and going to my summer house. I am going to watch International Balloons Competitions, there. It would be a fun. We are also going to have a barbecue in my garden. And I believe I  will take a lot of interesting photos which I will share with you..

Good fences in Turkey

30th April 2015
I would like to show an old wall which is 600 years old from Turkey.


It was in the small town..

Wednesday 29 April 2015

Ihlara Valley in Tuirkey - dinner in the fresh air

29th April 2015

After a long walking about 7 km we reached to the restaurant where the dinner was served. It was a typical European style. All were hungry ... impatiently waited for it..




My dinner


My Spanish friend decided to order different food..


In the restaurant at the river..

Tomorrow the second day of my trip.

Tuesday 28 April 2015

Lunch in the Ihlara Valley

29th April 2015

During our walking in Ihlara Valley we had lunch. I had only Turkish coffee but my friends had Turkish pancakes filled with goat cheese and fried vegetables. It is different from European food but yummy.


 Tea, coffee or fresh juice on the small farm on the route





Locals have prepared delicious pancakes..

Orange juice from fresh fruit was also possible




Clothes shop with traditional dresses.

My friend duck which was fed by me...






The small town located in the valley

Monday 27 April 2015

Ihlara Valley part 2

28th April 2015

Ihlara Valley is an interesting place to visit and thee are some interesting churches there. Some,e of them have survived for centuries so it was nice to visit them..


 Yılanlı Kilise (the Snake Church) is a simple barrel-vaulted church with a low ceiling and long nave. It is named for the frescoe of SaintsTheodore and St George slaying the dragon (or snake as depicted in the frescoe). The church also has a frescoe of Emperor Constantineand his mother Saint Helena depicted holding the True Cross. Legend has it that she discovered the cross upon which Jesus was crucified after seeing it in a dream, and that a piece of the cross is still buried in the foundations of the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. Other sections of the cross are in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and in St. Peter's in Rome. Another interesting portrait is the one of Saint Onuphrius on the upper wall to the right of the entrance. The saint lived the life of a hermit in the Egyptian desert near Thebes, Egypt and is usually depicted with a long gray beard and wearing only a fig leaf.



It is wonder that paintings have survived for a LONG TIME..






 Walking in the Ihlara Valley was a pleasure..

The donkey animal which doesn't live in Poland..





Local handmade carpets for sale...