Gaziantep

We left Cappadocia early Monday morning to drive to Gaziantep, which is in Southeastern Turkey. Though it was a long car ride, the geography was so amazing I was never bored. We got to Gaziantep at about 6 o'clock, where we checked into a wonderful old hotel, which actually was 4 houses surrounding a courtyard. We only had time to wander the copper bazaar and make a loop around the city castle, which is unfortunately closed for renovation. Southeastern Turkey is famous for its kebabs, and so we indulged in those at the Imam Cagdas kebab house, as well as baklava, which Gaziantep is famous for.



We're going to Eastern Turkey! That's Art on the left, and his wife Shelia on the right. They've been married 51 years! They're quite well traveled and a lot of fun to be with - cheerful, interested and interesting, funny and kind. On the far right is our guide, Unluer, who is also a lot of fun and really knowledgeable and comfortable to be with. It's a good group!

Now I just want to show pictures of all the different types of terrain I've seen since leaving Cappadocia.











Normally kids just get on my nerves but the kid in the bottom photo was pretty funny. We stopped at an ancient Hittite stone workshop, which dates back to 4,000 years ago, and his dad was the archaeologist/workman there. The little kid kept running and picking all of us flowers.



There were a lot of sculptures at the Yesemek Open Air Museum that were leftover from the Hittites, and it's a beautiful location too.





A store in the copper bazaar in Gaziantep selling huge tubs of tomato or pepper paste, with different levels of spicyness.



Of course, some tea and baklava!

Here's the hotel. It was really hard to capture my room, it was HUGE and had so much character. It used to be the attic of this house. The name of the hotel is the Anadolu Evleri.



Standing up at the top of the narrow stairs leading to my room, this is the view to the right.



And to the left.



The bathroom



This is a view of the building my room was in, on the top floor, taken from the courtyard where we had breakfast.

I also just quickly want to include some pictures of my hotel in Cappadocia. The tour I'm going on picked it out for me and it couldn't have been more cute, charming and clean, and the people who worked there couldn't have been nicer. They lent me their coat because they said I would be too hot with mine, they gave me a lift into town, they gave me a wake up call for the early morning balloon ride even though I didn't ask for it (which means she woke up at 5:15 just to call me), and prepared me an early breakfast when I had to depart early. The name of it is the Yasemin Hotel, in Urgup, Cappadocia. Very small, very sweet. My room was hard to capture, but it was either built into a cave or with cave-like qualities, and there was a little loft I could climb up to!







I still haven't had a chance to talk about today but I think that is enough for now! Tomorrow will also be a busy day, but let's just say today I visited the oldest known temple in the world...