Ankara – Istanbul (Day 8 - Part 2)

Tokapi Palace
Tokapi Palace is near to Hippodrome and the Blue Mosque. Since Tokapi Palace was closed on last Tuesday, we visited it when we back to Istanbul again. There were few museums inside but i think took us more than 1/2 a day if we go into each of them one by one. As usual museum in Turkey, we are not allowed to take photo in the musuems.










Beautiful Gardens in Tokapi Palace








The Grand Bazaar
According to our tour guide, the Grand bazaar is a tourist spot compared to the Spice Bazaar. Sine Turkish Lira I have almost finish, we didn't buy anything from the Grand Bazaar.


Belly Dance and Folklore Dance Show

Ankara – Istanbul (Day 8 - Part 1)

We back to Istanbul again! Out flight will be departing from Istanbul.

Spice Bazaar
The Spice Bazaar in Istanbul, is one of the oldest bazaars and 2nd largest covered shopping after the Grand Bazaar. Spices, dried fruits, nuts and seeds, lokum (Turkish delight) and other edibles food filled most of the shops. Jeweleries and potteries can be seen there too.


Various type of Spices



Lokum (Turkish Delight)



Apple Tea, Rose Tea...

Handmade Soup

Outside Spice Bazaar

Cappadocia –Ankara (Day 7)

One of the famous features in Cappadocia is hot air balloon. We did not take hot air balloon because it was too expensive (at least to us), USD200 per pax.


The journey from Cappadocia to Ankara took about 6 hours. On the way, we stopped by Tuz Lake or Salt Lake, the second largest lake in Turkey.



The saline lake very shallow, only within 0.5-1.0meter most of the year. The lake has no outlet and few surface streams feed into it. The lake was so big that I can’t see the edge.



Ataturk Mausoleum
The only tourist spot we visited in Ankara was Ataturk Mausoleum, the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the leader of Turkish War of Independence -the founder and first president of the Republic of Turkey. There was also a museum displayed Ataturk’s personal items, his wardrobe, and some of the gifts presented to him are on display in this museum. Ataturk's medals, decorations and some personal items donated to the museum by his adopted children are also exhibited in the museum. We are not allowed to take photo in the museum. His pictures and statues can be easily seen in Turkey.

Cappadocia (Day 6)

Once, Cappadocia was in the middle of volcanic region. Over many millions of years, volcanoes, wind, rain and ice sculptured erosion form up to be nowadays what we can see in Cappadocia. The local people called these unique rock formation as “fairy chimney”. Ancient man carved the rocks and built houses, church and also underground city.

Kaymakli Underground City
There are about 40 underground cities in Cappadocia. The widest one is Kaymakli underground city, while the deepest is Derinkuyu Underground City.
Kaymakli (Enegup in Greek) people built their homes around the underground city tunnels for security reason. Kaymakli Underground City has 8 storey and able to accommodate 5000 peoples to live in it, 4 storey is open yet. The deepest point of the visit is below 20 meters. There are rooms and halls connecting to each other with narrow corridor, wine tanks, water cistern, kitchen and food stores, ventilation chimneys, water wells, churches and large lock stones for any danger from out. Ancient people are so smart.





We would definitely lost if we passing through the weird chambers and down sloping tunnels without any sign, just like we are in the labyrinth. And we have to tell each other ‘watch your head” when we ducked into some of the cave. A red arrow sign shows the way farther down and a blue arrows show exit.

Pigeon Valley
Pigeon Valley which named for the thousands of pigeon houses carved into the rock.





Other Photos:









Goreme Open Air Museum
There are more than 10 cave churches in the Göreme Open Air Museum with beautiful frescoes (wall paitings) whose colors still retain all their original freshness. All the churches in Goreme Open Air Museum belong to the 10th, 11th and 12th centuries. We did not visit the entire cave churches. Maybe I am not a Christian, that why I couldn’t figure and understand the figure on those frescoes, I only know Jesus, haha! However, I tried to understand the character and history through tour guide’s explanation.