Venice to Turkey 17, Part 2

By travelerdon on July 10, 2026

Day 17, Cappadocia after breakfast! May 20

We now visit Uchisar, a village of “stone churches” or “fairy castles”, where people still live. Remember we saw one of these from the hot air balloon this morning! The first thing I notice is the Police Station (Jandarma)!

There are moments of very light rain, not enough to get you wet, but enough to put spots in some of the photos! This place is fascinating! What a concept of house building! As a testament to the quality of the camera on my iPhone 17 Pro, the first photo here is a zoom in of the second photo!

A resident, Ismail, invites us in and gives us a complete tour throughout his house. Four generations have lived here. It is pretty spacious and comfortable looking. It’s amazing that the house looks totally livable! Ismail makes a living by selling trinkets and food in his own cafeteria and store built into his house! One room feels very warm and Elee comments on that. Ismail tells us that is because the fireplace is lit! Notice in the photos that Ismail has a terrace and even a built in ‘veranda’ overlooking the valley!

It is hard to describe the feeling as we marvel at the ingenuity of the Turkish people!

We spy a unique bike path and are told that Turkey chose ‘cornflower blue’ as its national aesthetic and functional color choice. The bright coloring helps combat cars parking or driving illegally in the bike lanes, and serves as a visual guide

Now we move on to the “Camel Hoodoos” and Fairy Castles or ‘towers’. Lots of fun rock formations in Cappadocia. We walk around until rain drives us back to the bus.

Rain sets in and are offered a downhill walk in the rain which I pass on and a stop for hot tea and coffee. I decline again but I’m sure the downhill hikers will enjoy. We do walk down to a unique set of shops with a couple of ‘Wishing Trees’ where you can tie on a ribbon for good luck!

We make another stop to check out a rug store but I decline to go in as I have seen Turkish rugs AND their prices!

We have a lunch stop at an all-you-can-eat buffet that turns out to be very good. We have determined that Turks can make a mean cup of soup!

We get to our hotel around 4:30 PM and dinner is at 7. I set my alarm and go to sleep for a couple hours. We get up for dinner and go back to the room for the night. A couple photos out of the room show our view.

See you all tomorrow!