More driving in Anatolia

After we left Sobesos, where the Roman village was being uncovered, we came across a sign for the Keyserik Monastery. We had not heard of it, and it was not on our map. But we stopped, as this is the sort of thing you rent a car for.

There was another car with Tourists there, and their guide/driver was sitting down with the woman who was selling tickets to enter. It looked as if she lived in the caves still, as she had all her stuff there in front of her. For our YTL3 ticket entrance fee, we also got a cookie. She was very nice.

These were gorgous churches. There were no people there, though there had been many in the past. There was a lot of Greek graffitti, much if it with dates from the late 19th or early 20th century.

This room in particular was moving, just because the colors were so vivid:


You can see some of the frescoes, with the graffitti here:


We then drove down to Solangi to see several more, and much more famous painted churches. (many photos in my Picasa album to the right ---->)

But it started pouring down rain. We had to hide in this cave until it stopped.

We really felt isolated. There were NO people in this area where we stopped. There was a French couple we saw originally, but they skedaddled when it started raining.

A Turk jumped into our cave, apparently from nowhere. He was telling us that he owned the apricot trees on the grounds. We had no reason to disbelieve him. He told us that he sold dolls down in the village. We said we would stop by.

Then he walked with us to this church:


and promptly disappeared.

We did go to his doll shop later. More about that by and by.