July 13

We got up early and sat on our balcony as we sailed into the Bosporus, under the bridges, saw sunrise and cruised into Istanbul where we docked before 7:00am.  We were off the ship before 9:00 and 12 of us were met by our minivan & guide, taken to the airport and flew to Kayseri airport where we were met by another bus and drove to Cappadocia in Central Turkey.  We did some sightseeing on the way before checking into the Museum Hotel which is built out of cave dwellings.  Our room was a cave which had been lived in 2000 years ago, however, I don't think those ancients had the modern amenities we had.  Cappadocia is famous for it's "Fairy Chimneys" which are soft stone volcanic protrusions in which various peoples had carved out interiors and lived in over the past 5000 years,  It is really a unique area and impossible to accurately describe without pictures.  We had 3 days there so more pictures will be forthcoming.  The entire area was formed by volcanic eruptions millennia ago  and the softer outer layers have eroded away from wind & snow over the centuries leaving an eerie landscape.  An earthquake in 1953 destroyed or weakened most of the structures and they were abandoned.  In the past 30 years or so they have been strengthened and interiors modernized and turned back into dwellings, storage units and hotels.  Telling the entire story would take a book and this blog is purposely brief because I usually don't have much free time to compose & post it.  We had some more touring in our mini bus later in the afternoon and went back to the hotel for dinner.