And the trip is off to a great start!

Hello from Goreme!

Our first full day in Turkey was spent going on a tour of various places in the "Cappadocia" region which is actually a nickname. The real name of the area is Anatolia.

Seeng as our time spent here was cut short due to the flight being cancelled. We thought going of the tour would be a good idea and thankfully it was!

We met lots of nice people on the tour from all over the world. Seeing as the weather here at the moment is surprisingly chilly the plan for the day was swapped around, so the first destination of the day was the Selime Rock Monastry. It involved a bit of climbing -which probably wasnt the best for my sore ankle - but it offered a great view over the region. We the jumped on the bus again to Yaprakhisar. Looking over to the monastry it looked like a set out of Star Wars according to our guide!

We then went to Ihlara Valley where we went on a 3km hike along the river in the middle of the gorge! It was a lovely walk when we weren't tripping in slimy mud.

The lunch was provided by our tour and we got to eat some more traditional Turkish food which Lacey and I love.

Back in the bus again it was now time for us to head to the much anticipated underground city. There are over 256 undeground cities in this region, only 35 are still able to be visited. We went to the largest and most popular one called Derinkuyu. It was cool to see where Turkish people used to hide whilst under attack. They made speacial security doors so enemies couldnt enter and even had a church and wine cellar down there. I spent most of my time ducking as you can see in the photo but it was really interesting down there and reminded me a little bit of the castle labyrinth in Budapest.

Our final place to visit was Pigeon valley and then across the road from that we went to an Onyx factory and saw some of the rare stones from Turkey. I bought a turquoise ring, which I never knew actually meant Turkish stone!!!

Now back in Goreme we will spend another night in our wonderfully warm (NOT!!) hostel and then early tomorrow morning we will jump on a bus and head to Konya. One of the most conservative and religious cities in all of Turkey.

Hope everyone is well back home! I'll write again soon!