Ihlara Valley

To the visitor the Ihlara valley is like an oasis in the desolate and eroded Cappadocian landscape.No wonder the monks and the locals build their houses and monasteries in it.The monks found isolation and the local christians shelter from the harsh Anatolian weather and from the raiders.they cultivated the land along the river where they build terraces and employed an irrigation system.Very little of all that remains,the trees seem to have covered most of it.Most of the churches are small bouild by small communities at their own expence so are the frescoes ,painted by local artist on very small budgets(no comparison to the paintings in Constantonople).We started the walk from our campsite in Bellisirma towards Ihlara village.We stopped on the way to see 3 churches only as we had very limited time.The churches were near the bridge below the car park where most of the day visitors arrive.considering that they are 700 to 1300 years old and suffered a lot of vandalism and neglect they are still in a very remarkable condition.As i said earlier there are more than 100 churches in the Ihlara valley and more hermitages ,monasteries and hundreds of rock cut houses.If anyone feels like exploring and spending time there are still houses and churches high on the cliffs that nobody seen maybe for 700 years.We finished our walk in the village of Ihlara and we were transfered by coach near the village of Selime by the Melendiz river for lunch.