Anatolya's famous pottery- at Avanos Kapadokya

The previous post in this series is here..

Our next stop on the tour was a short drive away to Avanos. We crossed a river and saw a lot of brick makers on the way. Then we came to a rock gallery that was pretty much cut into a cave. The video says it all.. the have some amazing artists who have been hand painting these pieces for 30 to 40 years and it is fascinating to watch their hands play with that brush. “You get good at what you practice” is something we hear in yoga class.. that came to mind.

Not a single false step and with a lot of imagination! We walked through the gallery, then got a little pottery demo, and finally it was time to say bye. Our fellow tourists bought stuff, but given we were traveling without check in bags, just had to be content with watching. They do ship to the US but that was for larger pieces.

Right outside this place Ali Baba was selling butta .. there was a heated debate on having that before lunch. Again by a 3:1 veto the ladies decided to go for it. My logic vs. Ali Baba’s silent marketing where he gave them a look and roasted the corn with such care… I had no chance!

Then we stopped by a large rest stop place that had a buffet. All the tour buses stopped here. There were plenty of vegetarian options. Our guide had lunch tickets. Anything else like bottled water or juices were extra. (so keep some Euro or Turkish currency handy!). After lunch we were off to see more rock formations ..

Here are a few pictures of our Avanos experience..

and a video highlights reel..

Learned a lot in this segment. Tulips came from Turkey! Tulips were the symbol for god in ancient Islam. The tree of life which we had seen just two days back in Topkapi palace but had not connected as a “tree of life”, etc.

First we thought this was a marketing stop. Turned out to be one of the highlights of the tour! The artwork in this place is amazing.. just be careful when walking around. You break it, you bought it and most of the pieces are in the few hundred dollar range!

Goreme Open Air Museum - Kapadokya

The previous post in this trip series is here..

After watching the balloons rise and having a nice breakfast we were picked up at the lobby by our tourguide and driver for a Viator all day tour of Kapadokya. She was a very nice person trying to manage the time between giving us history and trying to have fun. She did an excellent job.

To thank her we participated in her promo reels!

Our first stop in the tour was the Goreme open air museum. This place has some amazing history during post crucifixion times when Christianity was a forbidden religion. The cave monastries and the paintings inside that date back to 700 AD were amazing. Unfortunately no pictures in most places allowed, understandably as the flash might damage what is left of the pigments.

Here are the pictures.. the first one was by Jr. who was trying to get the sun flare to land on us.. I got to teach her geometrical optics during this process! She was temporarily impressed with daddy for a good 30 seconds.

There is also a lot of history on St. George here that I found fascinating.

and here is the short video highlight reel..

On the whole this was an amazing place. It was good we started the trip here because by the time we got out to the exit, temperatures were already in the 90’s! We were glad to get back to air conditioning for a while..

An 83000 square meter palace - Istanbul Day 2 afternoon

The previous post in this series is here..

Afer a quick stop at our hotel to wash and change clothes we had to make it back to the German water fountain to meet our guide and other group members. The little one who was busy studying for the exam of a lifetime, decided to stay put in the hotel. The three of us made it in time and went for a long long walk with the guide to Topkapi palace.

This was a monstrous palace. There were way too many sections and this is also a very large museum. There were sections that showed life as it was during the Sultanate 500 years ago, to the French style addition in early 1900’s.

This is some diamond on display at the museum! Not going to go into the details here.. but it is 86 Karats and is called the Spoonmaker’s diamond! Has a very interesting story behind it!

Two vertical pano shots and a horizontal pano.. the views were amazing both inside and outside the palace. We would have spent more time here if we were not on such a tight schedule and it was cooler outside.

We covered as much as our legs would let us. There is no AC in the rooms. On a hot afternoon where temperatures were in the 90’s it was tough covering what we did. Not adding too many pictures of the artifacts save for a very special diamond! You can see the entire experience in the video highlight reel..

After this the tour was done. We could disperse when we wanted. So we took an Uber from the main road and went to the Galata Tower. This was one attraction that was on the other side of the bridge. Once we reached the tower, the crowd was overwhelming. The line to go up the tower was more than 500 people. So we decided to skip going up. We saw a nice rooftop restaurant right next to the tower and had some snacks while enjoying the views of the tower and Istanbul.

Once done we had a tough time finding an uber back (this place is extremely crowded). You are better off walking out a few blocks to get the Uber. We made it back in time to the hotel for another change of clothes. We had an hour to take another long ride to go on our last adventure for the day!

That one alone has 250 photos.. so might be a few days before I edit them all and post..