Tales of Touring Turkey by Fred Moore:

THE CAVE HOMES OF GÖREME

© 2009 by Author

The earliest indication of such caves is given by the Greek author Xenophon, who in 401 BC passed through the highlands of Cappadocia together with Greek mercenaries on the way to Persia. He reports on the how wine, grain, fruit and vegetables were stored in underground magazines. Pliny the elder tells in the 1st century AD of how grain was stored in subterranean silos in Cappadocia, a practice that is still very much alive, and apparently kept well for decades.
    Even if Göreme is not alone in the world in having rock-cut cave dwellings that are still in use, they are, however, the most interesting due to their unique historical and geomorphological connections and their versatility. Göreme has a large number of these "fairy chimneys" which are tufa cones that have been hollowed out over the centuries to produce several stories of dwellings and storage chambers extending right up to the peak. Göreme is the only place in the world with free-standing "sky-scraper" caves. An advantage of the topography is that it allows the cave dwellings to be lit with relative ease, making them anything but the cliché picture of damp, dingy caves. The dry, breathable tuff stone also ensures a pleasant climate inside the dwellings.

If you would like to take an up-close group tour of Göreme, or would like to invite her to visit your U.S. town with her Turkish slide show and talk, contact Mehlika Seval at www.melitour.com

On 7 Oct at 10:30 in the morning, our group gathered at the information center in Göreme square, across from the bus stations, to tour five cave homes in the village. The Göreme Charity Restoration fund ( www.Göremecharity.com ) is sponsoring our tour today. We begin our tour with a short overview from Ruth Lockwood and Pat Yale of what homes we'll be visiting, along the path through the village. Also joining us on the tour are two local residents: Nico Leyssen and Ali Yavuz. We will visit Nico's home and Ali is the chairman of the fund I mentioned above. Our tour today has thirty participants and our guide is Pat Yale, the author of "A Handbook for Living in Turkey," which is available at www.Amazon.com and is well worth your review! This book is your "owner's manual" for acclimation to this wonderful country.

Pat leads us off across the parking lot, over a canal that cuts through the center of the shopping district and up a hillside to our first home visit. Pat points out the old mosque as we pass and begin to climb the hillside. We stop for another minute at a fountain that was once a central village laundry facility. Pat points out the carved vats for washing and rinsing clothes as well as the built in oven portion of the wall to one side; you can wash your family attire and cook simultaneously.

I notice just to the side and behind this laundry/cooking façade there are several carpet/kilim looms in a garden. It appears this garden is set up to dye wool and transform it into colorful carpets and kilims. I tell Carol we need to investigate this more thoroughly later!

We continue our ascent and once again briefly pause so Pat can talk to us about the five-star hotel we've come to, "Anatolian House". She tells us visitors fly into Turkey in their private jets and come to Göreme to stay here, and that one of the founders of 'Google" was a recent guest here. We ascend the hill even further now and come to the first home. We walk an incline cluttered with a bit of construction debris to get to the gate then move through it into a very lovely courtyard. A portion of the courtyard at the entry is covered with a grape vine breaking up the sunlight that comes into the space. Access to the home is attained by climbing a series of slightly curved uneven steps from this small courtyard.

Once inside our group gathers in what we would call a living room or family room. Our group is nearly too large for this small space but everyone squeezes in for Pat's lecture on the home's history. This one is a traditional home with neither renovations nor 21st century amenities. The walls are painted with a special coloring material - pigments mixed with water (white wash comes to mind) - and have numerous layers on them from annual painting. The space is small but quite cozy in appearance. We're actually in two rooms as we have the sleeping quarters to our back as we stand and sit facing Pat. But that space, too, is small, about half the size of the living room and higher than where we're standing. We keep reminding ourselves that we're in a cave home and its rooms are on different levels.

No one with a disability could easily live in these dwellings. Every room you move into has steps attached to it or ramps from one to the next. The doorways are narrow and the ceilings are low. Obviously, in times past folks were a bit shorter than today's tour group. Most of us had to bend down to get into and out of different rooms. This whole "house" was smaller than most of our own, by far. There are very few decorations adorning the walls or tables other than some artificial flowers and a few personal photographs of family. Pat points out one that is the Grandmother. We must keep in mind that this home is for the comfort of a family not accustomed to western opulence. The family dwelling here is also probably far more closely knit than most of us "modern" folks. Carol and I both wish the lady of the house a good day and thank her so much for letting us invade her personal space, even for charity.

As we carefully make our way down the steps and into the courtyard to leave, we notice the men working next door have shoveled out of our path some of their construction rubble, making our exit far easier than our entrance. The entire panorama of cave dwellings and other homes along our walking path - actually a village street - seem to be under construction. As we continue our walk, we pass piles of stone and a number of men chipping away on them to make them smooth and square for walls and other support structures. One mason I walk quite near was, I surmise, chipping away at a block to carefully curve the surface for an arch. Another was carefully carving a decorative façade into another stone that appeared to be a piece going into a series of blocks to form a tree of life or some such decoration.

Pat had planned to turn our tour group down this side street but construction required altering our route. Walking down and around the next several streets and back up to the next home on the tour we find it is fully renovated and up to date. We enter the courtyard and discover a magnificent view through a breezeway. There's a stairway to our left one can take to the roof for a more sweeping view of the valley stretched out below. Each room is separate and is entered from the courtyard; even in winter, moving from one room to another is through the courtyard. It's only a few steps between rooms but still one must pass into the courtyard. To our right is a dining/sitting room, then there are stairs down into what I'm told is an unfinished bar area, additional bedrooms and again the breezeway with benches and rocking chairs. The rockers are wrought iron with wood accents, very comfortable and wonderful with this outstanding view. This home is very lovely; one of our tour group comments, "I could easily live here!"

Pat has some challenge here gathering everyone around so we can leave - I understand their reluctance to leave this wonderful home. Everyone relents and we move on again, down the street to nearly the city shopping centers and back up the other side. Climbing and climbing we continue now into a very narrow street and come to Nico Leyssen's place which was once a restaurant and now is his prize renovation project. The facility once belonged to an Ottoman Pasha who served in Istanbul. The Pasha actually enticed a Topkapi Palace painter to come to Göreme and paint his home's interior walls with elaborate scenes. After only a few steps up to the entrance, once inside the building we're confronted with far more steps leading up to a large sunlit loft-like space. Again, we have steps into two rooms above our level and steps down into the kitchen area. There are a few photos on the wall documenting the state the building before Nico's extensive restoration. The renovation here is ongoing, and research is underway to capture the full origins of the home.

Our group collects in the uppermost room (the men's room. No! Not that men's room!) here we sit around the room on benches skirting the large space. This is old Ottoman custom: male and female occupants were not entertained in the same rooms, thus we have the men's and the ladies reception/sitting rooms. This men's room has all wood-frame construction, walls, ceiling, and floor. The room is painted with murals of country scenes and ornate decorations with some scroll patterns and scripts from the Koran. We're surrounded by windows; large ones at our level and smaller ones above with another full valley view. We're offered refreshments here - soda and water. Nico and Ali alternate the lecture as they describe the life of the building. It's abundantly clear that this was a very fine house in its day. Carol and I are immediately reminded of the magnificent Ethnographic Museum Building in Kayseri. Next to the men's room is the ladies room, again a very lovely painted room with murals of flowers and other appropriate feminine flair. The woodwork again is ornate and something not to be missed.

I don't wish to overstate the appearance of each home visited today or its full ambiance because I don't want to remove the tremendous pleasure you would get from being here in person. The immense craftsmanship in Nico's home is extraordinary.

Our next stop is Pat's personal residence. She has mentioned she has nine cats; this is not a stop for those with allergies to the feline. I notice first off the two meter wall holding up the pathway to Pat's front gate. There's NO protection from a fall should one weave off the narrow path. The gate is two wonderful ancient wood doors. Immediately, one notices the "cats' door" cut in the bottom of the gate. We enter into the usual small courtyard; there are many plants and shrubs about the area. Pat explains a small hole in the courtyard paving; seems there's a root cellar below her courtyard. Her neighbor has asked that she not cover the hole since it supplies air to his cellar. With a short introduction out of the way, we enter into the sitting room and toward the back into the dining room of her home. The dining room has two mangers carved into the wall; this was once the stable for past occupants: animals. yes, it was a stable. In the distant past many families occupied two cave homes side by side; one for the human occupants, the other for their animals. Often the heat given off by the animals was radiated through the walls to the human side, and, supposedly, some of the barnyard aromas as well. We followed in Pat's footsteps, and several of those smells arose along our way, so the past isn't far from those living with their animals even today.

Just inside Pat's front door we passed through another door to our left that opens into the kitchen created by Pat. She tells us it was simply an open space when she bought the home. She opens a door to the rear of the room and exposes a staircase to her bedroom; this used to be the chimney for the fire place. Pat says she does not wish to change the exterior appearance of her home and thus makes changes internally so the exterior maintains its original facade. She also made the staircase (where the former chimney was) to avoid going outside to the other rooms of her house. Even so, she has to move through a common outdoor hallway to go to one room. Tongue in cheek, Pat says it is a little unhandy in the wintertime!

Now, I'm afraid I must drop my story here. I simply could not continue the tour to the last home. Walking up and down all those streets and climbing untold numbers of stairs had worn me down. My knees were crying out for some relief. I left my wife with the group to visit the last home on the tour. Carol will pick up the tour from here on:

Well, up another cobbled street we go to the top - this time to view a nearly-finished cave hotel. The outlines are there but there is no furniture. Pat says the owner already has it completely booked for the Seker Bayram (a post-Ramadan candy feast/holiday during which candies and presents are given mainly to children.) which is the following weekend. Pat said she is confident the hotel will be finished! It will be very interesting to come back to see it in its final state.

Believe it or not, we are now going DOWN a hill - probably one of the steepest in the village. We pass the Kelebek Cave Hotel, the Canyon View Hotel, a couple of other pensions and even the Ottoman House (at the bottom of the hill) on our way to the last house. We walk up a gradually inclining hill about six blocks, then across the front of a group of three dwellings. Surprisingly, we are finally asked to take off our shoes. Guests and family members in most Turkish homes always remove their shoes when they come in from outside and I am surprised this is the first place where we actually do so. Fatma and Hasan own this home. They have lived here for the past 25 years, but the home has been in their family for many generations. We are ushered into the guest/reception room, a large room furnished on three sides by seating areas with cushions. Each large wall is hung with a large carpet that Fatma has made in the Avanos style. One took about seven months to make and the other (a much more elaborate composition) took eleven months. Sadly, she no longer makes carpets. True to Turkish hospitality, even during Ramadan, the Muslin month of fasting, we 'guests' are offered tea. While we wait, Fatma tells us about her family and their home. They have had many guests; last year the President of New Zealand was here and her picture is proudly displayed on the wall. The tea is ready and we are served a delicious cake as well. As we begin to leave, Fatma has set up a table with many handmade items she and her daughter have made and wish to sell. I could not resist yet another crocheted doily, this one in a large diamond shape.

This time I called it quits as the rest of the party went around to the back of Fatma and Hasan's home to view a church carved in the other side of their "fairy chimney" in this complex which was, at one time, a monastery. It is for a fascinating setting for a "modern" cave home.

The cave house tour is an extraordinary opportunity that should NOT be missed. I'm told the tour will once again be offered next spring! Keep an eye open for it, and bring your walking shoes and your camera! ENJOY!