Cappadocia. Just as awesome as I'd been imagining for 17 years.... Above are Fairy Chimneys across from our hotel. A little background on Cappadocia (this site has some basic info, mostly where I grabbed my snippets for this post): The amazing rock formations are from volcanic eruptions. The rock is soft and easily carved, so people have been living in these places since prehistoric times. Besides the Fairy Chimneys and cave houses with tunnels and levels going up and down (which we liked best), there are underground cities, painted "cave churches" carved into the sides of the soft rock in many valleys, delicious food, really nice people, and lots of dirt to continually rub your hands into.
Here's where Cappadocia is. See it? Almost smack in the middle of Turkey. We drove the 6 hours to Istanbul, stayed overnight, and flew in the morning to Nevşehir (pron. Nev-shu-hear) , one of the two cities in Cappadocia with an airport. We had a car rental, so we took off for our hotel, in the village of Çavuşin (pron. Cha-vu-shin). There's a lot (that might be an understatement) of pictures in this post, so I'm not going to be too wordy. Hopefully. I'll try to let the pics do the talking!
Atop the ruins across from our hotel, the Village Cave Hotel.
Annnnd... looking out at our hotel from the ruins. It was a great place to stay. Rooms and hallways carved out of the rock itself, a really nice family running it... We enjoyed our time there.
How cool is this photo? Playing in a lone beam of sunlight. Looks like they should be triggering a booby-trap or something.
Little cave robbers sitting in some little carved out nooks in our room. Those swords were propped in our room for decoration. Yeah, 'cause that's where they're gonna stay when a BRAN is around... (sarcasm alert). They were real, but very dull, which is why we let our 3-yr olds use them...
And Zachariah.
Going down into the underground city of Derinkuyu. That means "deep well", and it's a quite fitting name, as the city goes down 8 levels.
There was a church, a "graveyard" where the bodies had already been taken out so we got to get in an old grave (sounds fun, huh? ;), a school area, lots of living areas, kitchens, storage, wine presses, livestock pens, etc. It was a lot of fun to explore. These cave cities were excavated as early as Hittite times, and they arrived in Anatolia between 1900-1600 BC. Over the centuries the cities were expanded as different armies and such came through looking for plunder. Christians in particular took refuge in these hidden cities during the times that Christianity was rather unpopular. Rolling stone doors -- big discs about 3 or 4 feet in diameter, from what we saw -- kept invaders out, and wells, air shafts, and loads of storage space kept people alive for weeks or months at a time until it was safe to emerge.
We hiked down into the Ihlara Valley after visiting the cave city. There are about 60 Byzantine churches, chapels, monasteries, and hermits' caves from the 11th to 13th centuries carved out of the cliff faces down there. Only 360 stairs down! And back up again. (Down was better.) But it was very cool. Even cooler is that we went at low season tourism-wise, so we didn't have to fight as many crowds. We saw almost no one while in the Ihlara Valley.
Bran and Nuala of course had a terrific time climbing all over everything and scurrying through tunnels and looking for cave robbers and all that stuff. They (we all) were soooo dirty every day! It was great.
This says: "Attention! There's a dog!" That's rather literal... I guess it would really just mean "Beware of dog." These signs actually had the opposite effect... I was trying to get a peak at that freaky-looking donkey-dog. No luck.
Someone built a bridge-sittin' place. Maybe to fish from. Whatever it's for, it was fun for the tykes to climb out on.
Good view of Gator's little teeth. Here she only has three: two little bottom ones and one top one a-comin' out. Now (a couple of weeks later), she has FIVE!
Oooooh, the joy this camel brought to Bran and Nuala. I love camels, Z loves camels, and these two now love camels.
Maeve was loved BY the camel, but she was smiling, she was. I'm sure it was because she also loves camels and had absolutely nothing to do with her ear being tickled by a nuzzly nose.
Friendly fellow!
Göreme Open Air Museum... Göreme (pron. Guh-re-may) is one of the main towns to base oneself at when visiting Cappadocia. Our village was about 5 minutes away. The Open Air Museum is a collection of churches carved by Medieval orthodox Christian monks from about 1000-12000 AD.
They're decorated with Byzantine frescoes.
Nuala walking on a table, while Bran crawls between the table and the bench. This was how they made much of their furniture -- just carved it out of the soft rock.
Zac really liked this carpet shop in the town of Göreme, though neither of us can really get excited about actual carpets. I mean, they're pretty and all... but yeah... we don't get the allure.
Maeve became totally hooked on sliding. And I already mentioned she took her first few steps in Turkey. Big trip for that little girl!
Oh, how she loved the dogs wandering around! Anytime she spotted one (or a kitty, but dogs were easier to spot) she'd streeetch those little arms towards it and start shouting. She was like the doggy-lookout as we were walking through town. This little guy up above was so friendly. Eventually he started playing tug-of-war with Nuala's stick and she just loved that (Nuala did). She was bummed when he got bored with carrying her stick around. She kept trying to force it back on him. 
Yummm... one of the places we ate at. Twice. Ohhhh, their meatballs (köfte) were divine. Maeve was a pill whenever we went out to eat. But what do ya expect from an-almost-at-the-time-but-now-officially-today-10-month old? She had a lot of yogurt, hummus, beans, and eggplant this trip.
Uçhisar (pron. Oo-chee-sar). The tallest place in Cappadocia. There's a natural rock citadel at the top of it, but we didn't go in. We climbed all around and through the caves and had a blast. 
Amazing that people lived there! And yeah, people still live in places like this. I saw one with window shutters. Apparently at certain times of the year tours are given of currently occupied cave dwellings, complete with modern conveniences, of course. Not much different from our hotel, I bet.
Nuala, from waaaay down below, spotted a store up on the cliff. "I want to see if they have gems!" Good eye, Nuala, good eye. (Hide the credit card, Z...)
Exploring.
Teamwork! Warms my heart, it does. :)
This dwelling has a lot of pigeon houses carved into the sides, too.
Looking down on Uçhisar.
Some Uçhisar-ian dogs. I think they were all related. So friendly... we actually said several times on this trip, "Oh, we'd love a dog like that one! Oh, look at that one!", etc. Yeah, the kids would be thrilled with a dog! And we love the idea, but then we think about the reality of it and the overseas lifestyle and our enthusiasm drops a tad... maybe a kitten. Or a pet rock.
Oh, yeah! The BEST part of Cappadocia. The fairy chimneys and just going out into a valley, all by ourselves, and exploring. Finding caves and heading into them, climbing up and up and up... This was the greatest. We all had such a wonderful time. Even Maeve was enjoying it! For real.
It's so beautiful there!
Nuala and Bran loved all the sticks, and all the dirt. Nuala especially would just rub her hands all over in the dirt -- for no reason at all. Okay, she had a reason: She liked the feel of it. Ick. Then I'd hold her hand and all I could think about was fingernails going down a chalkboard because it felt like her hand was covered in chalk. Shudder. Bran is much more particular about keeping his hands and face clean, oddly.
Okay, here's one of the chimneys we explored. Honestly, I'm not sure if all the kind of "stand alone" protrusions are called Fairy Chimneys, or just the ones that look like they have a little hat on, or the ones with the balls on top... But I'm just going to go ahead and call 'em all that. Just so ya know.
Zac boosted me up into the crack and then Nuala came up. We went in and only stayed on the one level, which is where that window you can see in the first pic is. Then we went down and boosted Z and Bran up, and Zac found a shaft that went up to the next level, but we didn't have time to explore.
This is what Maeve was doing while Nuala and I climbed. Then she woke up and was quite offended that she had been plunked there.
Fairy chimneys. Zac read that these are called the "rude boys". I'm not sure why... haha...
THIS. This was the coolest one ever. Looks like a beehive kinda... but it's a four-level house! You go in the front door there...
...yep, this one...
...look out the window on the backside of it (still the first level)...
...and then find a hole in the roof and shove everyone up to the second level.
Maeve would always yell at whoever went before her. Like we're going to leave her behind or something! Hmmm... that couldn't have anything to do with the day before when she woke up abandoned on the ground when she had been snugly sleeping in the babycarrier, could it?
Anyway...while Daddy and Mommy were negotiating the Maeve-transfer-up-a-level, Nuala and Bran monkeyed up to the third level.
There's a window with a nice "balcony" on it on this level, so we enjoyed the view. You can't really tell, I guess, but Z is quite dusty. Did I mention that this was not a stay-clean trip?
Here are Maeve (grinning bigtime) and I sitting in the 3rd level window, while Bran and Nuala poke their heads out of the 4th level window.
And here's the 4th level. This was kind of a pain to get up into. Especially with Maeve. Not dangerous, mind you, because I want to clarify again that we would of course rather just not do something than overly-endanger the little tykes. I mean, we do our share of "adventuring", but in a safe way, I assure you! But yes, it was a pain. This little passage was tight and it was difficult to maneuver just right to get your arms or legs up for leverage. Whew! Those troglodytes (that just means "cave-dweller", and I recently came across it and finally got to use it! Yes!) must've been wee ones.
Ahhhh, so gorgeous.
Hamil, the hotel owner, and his wife and son, with Z and the kids. They were so nice, and just loved the kids. Both times we've gone to Turkey we've definitely noticed that the Turks' reputation for loving children is well-earned. The kids get soooo much attention there, and get little gifts here and there, and are basically adored. I know they're little blond, blue-eyed rascals, and they stand out in many of the places we've been, and that's part of it, but overall Turks just love kids. They're great.
A small portion of the collection of sticks in our trunk at the end of our stay. Seriously, you wouldn't believe how many "special" sticks there are in Turkey. Or anywhere Nuala and Bran go. Actually, you would believe it, if you have experience at all with small children. Especially boys. Oh, the lovely quarrels that a simple stick can induce...
And the fella who kindled the Cappadocia dream! Yes, folks, this is THE book I read when I was 14 that planted the itch in me. Cheesy, I know, but it was quite satisfying re-reading bits and pieces of it IN Cappadocia. And Zachariah was so patient and didn't mumble too loudly as I kept making him stop so I could take a picture of my book "in Cappadocia!" I'm sure it was almost as excited to be there as we were.So, there it is. Many pictures of a place that forced us to take over 1000 pictures... Oh, it was fun and beautiful and we loved it. I'm so thankful we have these opportunities. We do know how lucky we are to be able to do all these trips, etc. We sacrifice in other ways, for sure, but this perk is huge.
