Farewell to Cappadocia

Yesterday morning we went for a family walk with Dido, the neighbours’ dog, through the valley that winds through Ortahisar (photos below and on following pages). The sun was shining and the walk was beautiful, with lots of abandoned cave houses (including one large cave complex that is for sale!) for the kids to explore. It was a nice way to end our time in Cappadocia. Hugh wrote a note to thank Jim and Judy for letting them play with the dogs and showing us around the valley. He pinned it to their door and Jim was very touched by it.

We packed up our mountain of stuff, now much larger than what we had started out with! Our hosts’ friend drove us to the station and we had a quick lunch before catching a bus to Ankara. The three and a half hour bus ride was

uneventful, passing through farming country that again reminded us of Alberta, with foothills and snow capped mountains in the distance.

In Ankara, we took an unofficial taxi to our hotel that we had booked on Hotwire. It’s a 5 star hotel and feels very luxe compared to what we’ve been staying in. We lucked out on finding a great family restaurant chain for supper - Cigerci Serkan (pictured on opposite page) - close to our hotel, and they gave us a recommendation for breakfast.

I booked a hotel with a pool for the kids, but we all enjoyed the spa/pool, with a hammam, steam room, sauna and a heated pool. The kids went a little crazy in the hammam while we enjoyed the super hot sauna next door (we could hear their shrieking echo against the marble walls). They helped themselves

to the soap and bubble making bag, and we ended up all giving each other bubble massages like they had watched us have in Pamukkale. I’m not sure we were supposed to be using the stuff, but it was left out and we had the place to ourselves for quite a while. It was a lot of fun. We stayed in the pool area until 10 pm and then went to bed.

This morning we had a massive and delicious breakfast at Gumus Pasta, another great chain that we’ll look for in Istanbul. The boys and I then went back to the spa and pool, which we had to ourselves, and Topher went to visit the Atatürk monument and museum (pictured on following page). The boys had a great time pretending to be hammam attendants, making bubbles, giving me massages and squeegeeing the floor!

We’re now back at the bus station to catch a bus to Istanbul. We’ll get there late so it will be a long day, but we’re all super well rested and squeaky clean!