Turkish Rug Faxtory

Everywhere you go in Turkey they try to sell you a carpet! They are not cheap. It was interesting to go to a carpet factory. We got a tour and an explanation of how they train up the girls to make rugs in the factory for two years then they get to work from home. We learnt all about the silkworms and dyeing process. We learnt about double knots, wool on cotton, cotton on cotton, silk on cotton etc there are so many varieties. It was all very interesting and we saw so many different rugs- it was a real sales pitch and a real show. The rugs are not cheap, I had a good excuse- couldn't see the point of buying a lovely rug and then having dogs tramp all over it- but they certainly were out to sell you a rug! A few people did though from our group so the rug men were happy!

One of the rug weavers hard at work

A beautiful price of work- too nice to put on the floor!

All sorts of rugs!

Another piece of rug art if you have about $10,000 to spare!

Goreme Open Air Museum and the Fairy Chimneys

We visited the Goreme Open Air Museum and then wandered around the Fairy Chimney area. The Goreme Open Air Museum was a whole area of Fairy Chimneys that had been carved out and made into churches. Many of them had frescoes painted on the walls and ceilings, it was pretty spectacular. You also got lots of wonderful views across the valley. The churches dated from about the 5th Century AD.

The rocks were soft so churches, houses, monasteries were carved out inside the rock formations.

Day 5 Cappadocia Region

We had three nights in the Cappadocia region, originally we were only suppposed to have 2 nights, but due to rain the day before our hot air balloon ride was bumped back a day and we decided it was worth the risk to stay another night and hope the weather co-operated which it did. The Cappadocia region is just amazing, due to a number of ancient volcanoes and erosion over the years some magnificent land forms have been created, It is such a unique landscape one of the most beautiful regions I have ever been to. I wished I had a photographic memory to freeze some of the images in my mind and bring up at will- photos did not do the area justice and I was so glad we had the extra days here. The landscapes and valleys just went on for ever- beats the Grand Canyon any day in my humble opinion! Have decided this would rank in my top 10 places to visit.

People originally lived in houses that they carved out in the mountains.

Day 4- Gaziatnep to Kahramanmaras to Kayseri

Some photos from the Bazaar at Gaziantep

The fairy floss man- they are big into sugar in Turkey!

This man was serving pomegranate juice

One of the many copper smiths making a big cooking pot

Another man hard at work 

The minaret of the local mosque in Kahramanmaras- you would hear the call to prayer all over Turkey about 5 times a day- very atmospheric.

The town is famous for it's ice cream, you eat it with a knife and fork with a sprinkling of pistachio. It contains a gum so it makes it quite elastic, and when you buy it from an ice cream stall the ice cream seller can do all sorts of tricks with the ice cream as it doesn't really melt. It was nice but I would prefer a gelato any day! I suspect it is made from sheep or goats milk as we rarely saw any cows let alone a herd of dairy cows!

That night we had our first dinner with a local family in Kayseri, it was a beautiful meal and we had a homemade Turkish dumpling soup called Manit- it was just delicious. This family were so welcoming and hospitable, we had a lovely night with them.

Gaziantep Zeugma Mosiac Museum

Gaziantep houses the Zeugma Mosiac Museum- opened in 2011 the largest Mosaic Museum in the world. The mosaics of the ancient town of Zeugma, on the original Silk Road, were discovered in the late 1990's when excavations for a dam began. There are many large dams being built across Turkey and these ancient Roman mosaics were uncovered and moved to this new museum that opened in 2011. There were some amazing mosaics and just so old. The city was conquered by the Romans in 64BC

Day 3 Gaziantep- also know as Antep

After visiting Halfeti we traveled to the city of Gaziantep. Here we wandered through the spice stalls with all the peppers and egg plants hanging up from the shop windows and then wandered through the bazaar and saw lots of items being made and sold, it was fascinating wandering the streets and lane ways, all the people and colour. We saw the silversmiths and copper smiths hard at work.

 Gaziantep is the home of pistachio baklava, unfortunately I was sick this day and eating sugary foods was one thing I needed to avoid- it did look yummy and they made it everywhere.

The street stalls with the spices and dried peppers were a lovely sight.

Ahmet our tour leader making himself at home everywhere!

My mother was in shopping heaven- I think early on she said she was not much of a shopper- but it didn't take long to work out this was not the case!

We ended up in this beautiful coffee house dating back to the 1600's for a lovely glass of apple tea.

Day 3 Halfeti

Didn't get much of a change to update my blog while away so am going through now and filling in some of the missing days. After 2 days in Urfa we headed to Gaziantep or Antep, We went via the town of Halfeti which is where the "slow food movement" began. The new town is on the banks of the Euphrates river, a dam was built and the old town was flooded and had to be relocated. We headed up the dam to visit the partly submerged old town.

 Here you can see the top of the minaret of the mosque from the partially submerged town. It was a lovely day to be heading out on the water. I was suffering from a tummy bug so it was nice to sit and relax and watch the world go by. Lots of areas along the way that showed signs of former civilizations.

Our little boat that took us out.

  Sitting on our " thrones" and about to have apple tea which turned out to be orange tea ( more like warmed up orange tang!) A lot of families would sleep on thrones outside, they were wooded platforms raised up to keep the scorpions and bugs away when you slept outside- it was pretty hot country.. Our group had 6 travellers- Lyn, myself, mum above.

Ruth and Graham from Melbourne and also Shane. It was a lovely group and they were great travelling companions.

 This is Ahmet our tour oganiser from the Australian Intercultural Society from Melbourne. He is Turkish and a practicing Muslim, the idea of the tours is to promote understanding and harmony between Turkey and Australia. He was a wonderful tour leader and such a lovely man and so full of fun and life!

Mum and I cruising on the lake.