More Cappadocia

My main today gives a flavour of the variety of our day while the extra had done mortar off the extraordinarily landscape of this area. There will likely be more of that tomorrow so I went for the other as my main .
We set off early this morning to beat the crowds. This is a special weekend in Turkey as tomorrow marks the centenary of the Turkish Republic, there are going to be lots of celebrations and many people have come here to celebrate the weekend.
Our first stop was above an area called Vineyard Gallery, also called love valley. It therefore seemed very appropriate to see these two clambering up from the slopes wearing wedding outfits. I have a feeling it was a photo shoot rather than an actual wedding couple . My thumbnail is of a skewer of potato crisps - I was very tempted but had just had breakfast and didn't really have anywhere to put them
From there we went to somewhere called Monks Valley. Two of the extras were shot there, of the extraordinary and rather phallic fairy chimneys as they are known. The monks in question seem in fact to have been hermits living in isolation in caves in the rock. You can scramble up and into some of the caves, but it's not an easy access - yes of course I did! By the time we left there were huge queues to get in so our guide was right to get us moving early.
Our next stop was at an underground pottery museum built into an underground cave area. It was very modern and had examples dating from 4000BC.... So that's 6000 years old. Almost beyond credibility. It's a very modern museum sponsored by the government.
Lunch was in a restaurant overlooking another valley of rock formations. Our next stop was the inevitable carpet factory demonstration and sales pitch. We had no intention of buying but the work was certainly beautiful.
In my main you can see a little scene I came across in the carpark after our tour. The man bending was selling carpets his wife had made to the cooperative (apparently they get 60% of the sales price). He pulled about 10 carpets of varying sizes from his car and they were all inspected and either bought or rejected. All of their stock, apart from commissions comes this way, the weavers work in their own homes.
After this we headed for a small, formerly Greek, village. This village was one of those where in 1923 after the Turkish/Greek war, the villagers were forcibly repatriated in the population exchange between Greece and Turkey. A village full of Turkish people was moved here from Greece while the former residents, who were largely Greek, moved to a similar site in Greece. I came across this earlier at Kayakoy. https://www.blipfoto.com/entry/2572885654870426758
My apologies for my lack of comments on your blips at the moment, our days are really full. I'm trying to look at your entries though. Thank you all for your lovely comments yesterday too and for the hearts which I have just noticed. Thank you