Turkey: Cappadocia

What a beautiful place to start our tour of Turkey! Cappadocia has some interesting geography and history, and we spent our first full day hiking through the ‘fairy chimneys’ and the ‘valley of the swords’ the terrain is definitively unique and breathtaking. After 3 or 4 hours walking in the Turkish sun, one is quite done being in the sun. We finished our hike, ate some lunch and turned in until the sun went down. When the sun is down, Cappadocia is, according to Jared, “the temperature in which humans are meant to live.” It is, in fact, quite pleasant and we had a nice time strolling by all the shops after dinner.

Valley of the Swords

Jared standing between two peaks- the left has a hole which is the entrance to an old church

Sunset over Goreme

Our second day we took the ‘green tour’ and visited an ancient stone monastery, an underground city, and hiked through a canyon. The underground city of Derinkuyu was the highlight. It was built (or dug rather) to be a refuge during invasions, and actually went, according to the guide, thirteen levels below ground. We only made it down to the fifth or so level and it was still pretty intense.   Group tours can really be exhausting, but we would not have been able to see all that we did had we tried to go on our own. Our guide was also very informative and provided great context for each place we visited.

The old monastery

A view from a window

There were some narrow passages

The last day, we had siked ourselves up for a hot air balloon ride. When we were initially quoted by our hotel manager, we thought the price was 130 TL per person which is about 40 USD. However, when we went to pay, it was 130 EURO per person. That was quite a bit out of our budget (especially for only 30-45 minute ride) and not an expense for which we had planned. We decided not to do the hot air balloon and determined that would be reason enough for a return visit in the future. This also turned out to be fortuitous because I came down with a bit of a stomach bug which meant I was in bed all of the last day anyway. I took some antibiotics and was able to make it for a sunset view though, which was, of course, stunning.

The balloons flying past our hotel window

 

This nice lady fed us our first Turkish pancakes, handmade by her, of course.

The day of rest served its purpose and I was ready the next morning for four hours on a bus to Konya!

Greece: Santorini

We arrived at the port around 4 pm. Our hotel manager was waiting with a van to take us to our island home for the next 4 nights. When we arrived, we immediately went to the super market across the street and got provisions for beach lounging. We went to the nearest beach, which happened to be a black sand beach, and sat in the sun for a while before we wandered down the beach front road and found a nice little place to have dinner. The same restaurant, in fact, that I would go to the next day for a yoga class!

Black sand = hot on your feet sand

Sunset over the ridge of the caldera

Our first full day in Santorini we decided to walk from one main city to another, after morning beach time of course. The walk was 9km between Fira and Oia. Oia is the city known for its sunsets. So, we started walking around 4 pm and arrived in Oia at about 7. We were able to get a table at a restaurant where we could enjoy dinner with a view of the sun going down over the horizon. The walk was long, but not as long as some of the hikes we did in China, and it afforded some beautiful views of the cities and the caldera. Also, before we left I ran into an old friend from high school- so crazy who you might run into half way around the world!

Caldera view #1... I had to be discretionary in my pictures because I took SO MANY

A classic blue domed building along the way

Jared with a view of the path

A panoramic, so amazing

The sun is coming down

Lower

And right before it goes below the horizon (people at our restaurant started clapping after it had disappeared)

The second day was dedicated to beach, pool and lounging. It was magnificent.

Breakfast = the most bestest meal of the day

Beaaaaach Suuuuuuuun

Our last full day on Santorini, we rented a four wheeler (very common on the island) and took it to first visit the ancient village of Akrotiri. Due to the volcanic activity on the island, the city was covered and preserved in volcanic ash after an eruption in 1627 BC. The site was very interesting, and one of the first ones we have been to where we could actually imagine all of the buildings coming together as a city. Part of this may be because it was covered and they had paved what used to be a road for visitors to walk along.

Oh, hello there, would you like to ride my 4-wheeler?

A glimpse of Akrotiri

Then we went to see the red beach and an old lighthouse. Both were just different and still spectacular views.

Red beach = not too good for sitting beach

View from the lighthouse

To end our day with the four wheeler we went to the Santo Winery and enjoyed a tasting flight and the excellent view of the island.

Breathtaking

The morning of our last day we had a delicious picnic breakfast on a mountain. We then had to take an 8 hour ferry back to Athens.

The mountains were colored differently but still just as pretty as all the green and blue

A peaceful morning spot

Our time in Santorini was bright, relaxing and beautiful. I can see why this place is on everyone’s ‘must-see’ list. Although we went back to Athens, we were there for less than 24 hours before we flew to Italy. Palermo is next!

China: Zhangjiajie

The most beautiful place on Earth. And, of course, I accidentally deleted most of my pictures from our second day. Good thing we both take pictures and have several duplicates.

We stayed at a wonderful hostel with an excellent front desk worker/giver of information. We had read in reviews about Victor and after our poor hostel experience in Fenghuang we couldn’t wait to get to Zhangjiajie and Victor. Both he and the park lived up to the hype. With Victor’s guidance we had an excellent two days exploring the park that inspired James Cameron's world in Avatar. The “hiking” (most hiking we have encountered in China is actually walking on a 2 meter wide paved path with stairs and railings) was not overly adventurous, but it does allow multitude of people to enjoy the park. I don’t have much to say about our time there, the history of the geology is beyond me and the most I can share without referring to Wikipedia is that the sandstone pillars and cliffs of Zhangjaijae were formed through physical erosion. The first day we went along the main tourist path, but since we chose to forgo the elevator up, it was about an 8 hour hike. On our second day, we took a path suggested by Victor. The scenery was almost as phenomenal as the first day, plus we only ran across about two dozen people during the 5 hour hike. The pictures don’t do the scenery justice (especially the enormity of the pillars, as most are well over one thousand feet tall), but they are better than nothing.

A waterfall from the Baofeng Lake

Baofeng Lake

 

The two peaks behind us are called "Lovers from Afar"- we were reenacting the scene

Awesome.

More awesome.

Beautiful? YES.

Shadowed pillars of beauty

Can't you see the avatars flying through?

I could just build a nest and stay here forever.

It was a lot of walking but the effort made the views that much more rewarding.

 

 

Since I'm pretty sure the Chinese government would deny any requests to build a human size nest in the park, we had to leave. Five days and four nights on Yangtze River is next!

 

China: Huangshan

As if I wasn’t already confused enough with the names of all the cities and places in China, Huangshan definitely made it worse. First of all, there is a mountain and a national park named Huangshan. The city at the base of this mountain is Tangkou. Then, an hour away is another city (through which most trains and buses transit) called Huangshan. It is difficult enough for a speaker of a romantic language to remember all of these 'foreign' sounding names in the first place, and then they have to go ahead and throw in duplicates. We stayed the first night in Tangkou, hiked the mountain and then stayed that night in Huangshan city. I had to ask Jared like 5 questions just to write the above few sentences.

Confusing names aside, something that is very cool about China is how much they treasure and respect their natural wonders. Something that is as equally humorous is how they go about enjoying these natural wonders. There are cable cars, trams, ferries and even sedan chairs carried by porters, all of which serve to eliminate the need to walk or climb the required steps. To be fair, while this is humorous, it is also nice because it allows people of all ages and of differing degrees of capability to access the parks and scenic areas. With that in mind, we started our day at Huangshan mountain by taking the cable car to the top. After getting to the first peak, we snaked our way through the tour groups and explored different views and peaks. We even found a place to have a morning snack without anyone else around. The views were as breathtaking as the number of steps. We had planned to see the sites as the Chinese do and were going to take the cable car back down the mountain. To our surprise, when we got to the ‘down’ cable car, thoroughly exhausted and ready for an easy ride, the cable car was out of order. We definitely weren’t laughing at cable cars when we had to go down a solid three miles of stairs. We walked a total of 17 miles that day, much of it either going up or down stairs. My calf muscles hurt for the next 4 days. It was worth it though and helped us get mentally prepared for our two days at Zhangjiajae.

Looking down from the 'up' cable car

It is so impressive that the tress grow at all angles and at such unlikely heights

This one looks like a stairway

This particular rock is called Monkey Watching the Sea... I can see why.

On the descent, narrow and treacherous (not really)

 

The next day, before we hopped on a night train (and in an effort to work some of the soreness from our muscles), we took a day trip to see two nearby ancient villages. Xidi and Hongcun are two villages which are considered to be representative of local style residences. The cities originated around 960 AD and still function as places of residence and everyday living for the local people. The villages kind of felt like living museums; we would walk into a tourist site and see the family that still lives there. Kind of odd but kind of cool.

A balcony among the trees

There were students painting in the streets in both cities

I thought this little balcony nook was pretty nice

Hey- look! We have bodies, not just heads... someone took our picture for us :)

A winding path through the city

Before we went to Zhangjiajae we visited a city called Fenghuang, the Phoenix city.