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A brief nap after our balloon ride was followed at 10 o'clock with a private tour to the Goreme Open-Air Museum, a coherent geographical site of cave dwellings and churches. There are eleven refectories within the Museum, with rock-cut churches tables and benches and each is associated with a church most of which belong to the 10th, 11th and 12th centuries.The Museum has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1984.Now, because the site is so interesting and unique means that the place attracts a lot of attention, and we mean a lot.A quick count on the drive up the slight hill to the museum entrance identified 30 coaches sitting in the car park in all their splendid gleaming white glory!30 coaches outside means approximately 1500 tourists inside and boy did it show.Ali, our guide and manager with Heritage Travel, skipped the normal route through the caves as there was no way on earth that we could follow it.The tourism TARDIS was again at work but instead of each cave containing Japanese we were greeted time and again by scores of exiting French.But the reason for the exceptional interest is understandable as the site contains the finest rock-cut churches each with beautiful frescoes whose colours still retain all their original freshness.Unfortunately, I am not able to provide my own evidence of the rock-strewn splendor as I went to take my first picture nothing happened.A quick check of the camera revealed that I'd left the memory card in the netbook!!!
The first chapel on our tour was that belonging to St. Basil and it has a rectangular nave with niches and three apses and arches.There were tombs in the floor which are open but covered by a metal grating and the frescoes included depictions of Christ, St. George, St. Basil and St. Theodore. The three Maltese crosses on the vault of the nave are believed to represent the Holy Trinity.This was an interesting church but the best was yet to come.
Next we go to the Dark Church (Karanlik Kilise) as Ali figured it would be quieter and we would get there before everyone else!Entry to the chapel is an extra 8TL per person but this is actually a good investment as it deters many people from going in.Ali told us that this was part of the intention of administering the levy and it worked as we were alone in this magnificent space for several minutes.
The Church was used as a pigeon house until the 1950s so after 14 years of scraping pigeon droppings off the walls, the newly restored frescoes, depicting scenes from the New Testament, happen to be the best preserved in all of Cappadocia and a fine example of 11th-century Byzantine art.Part of the narthex (vestibule), however, collapsed when some of the church's roof was opened to the sky millennia ago. This caused damage to the fresco showing Christ's Ascension and the Benediction of the Saints and other scenes where the wall collapsed now remain only partially.
Entry to the church is through a winding tunnel which opens into the barrel-vaulted narthex and it is covered totally with the most colourful and ornate frescoes imaginable.Some of the wonderfully painted scenes include the Deesis, Annunciation, Journey to Bethlehem, Nativity, Baptism, Raising of Lazarus, Transfiguration, Entry into Jerusalem, Last Supper, Betrayal of Judas, the Crucifixion and Anastasis.Magnificent colour can be seen everywhere the eyes choose to look, especially the vibrant blue background which was applied using paint made from the crushed semi-precious stone lapis lazuli.A fresco of a teenage Jesus was also pointed out to us and Ali believes it to be one of only 2 such depictions of Jesus in the world.Although the church was restored in 1986, which partway explains the dazzling brightness of the paintings, that restoration consisted merely of cleaning years of dust and grime from the chapel and none of the frescoes were repaired or enhanced.The story goes that the frescoes remain so intact because the church was lit only by a single small oculus (window).The lack of light entering the church prevented the frescoes from being bleached over time but the resulting darkness inside also deterred children, the main culprits of graffiti, from entering and defacing the wonderful scenes.
We continued walking through the site, seeing the monks' huge stone dining table, complete with stone benches, and the kitchen which was linked to the communal space.We did not get a chance to see much else within the main site as it was just too busy so we left to visit the Buckle Church (Tokali Kilise) which is just outside the main gate.
The Buckle Church is the largest of the cave churches at Göreme and its frescoes are also the finest, with the richest colours and the most detail. It is constructed on 3 levels, each level dating from the 10th, 11th and 12th centuries.It was heaving in there and it was all we could do to find a space for Ali to explain it all to us.Talk about standing room only, there wasn't even that!The church is comprised of four chambers known as the Old Church, New Church, Paracclesion and Lower Church. The Old Church (10th century) has a single nave with a barrel vault and the frescoes give a comprehensive account of the life of Christ, from the Annunciation through the Baptism and Miracles and ending with the Passion, Resurrection and Ascension. The Transfiguration is painted over the entrance and the vault has portraits of saints.Due to the chronological nature of the frescoes it is thought that the Church was also used as a type of school where the verbal story of Jesus was taught and reinforced with the picture frescoes.We just about managed to escape with our lives but had to literally push people to one side as we made our way out.After 2 hours on this awesome site we headed back to our hotel to await our transfer to Pammukale.
We met another American couple at the Kelebek during that final wait for our bus, exchanged emails then headed off to town to board our Nevsehir transport.The uneventful trip lasted 10 hours (1900-0500).
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