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Urgup
Urgup, a lively tourist center at the foot of a rock
riddled with old dwellings. serves as an excellent base from
which to tour the sights of Cappadocia. In Urgup itself you
can still see how people once lived in homes cut into the
rocks. If you wish to buy carpets and kilims, there is a wide
selection available from the town's many carpet dealers. These
characters are as colorful as their carpets, offering tea,
coffee or a glass of wine to their customers and engaging in
friendly conversation. If sightseeing and shopping havent
exhausted you, the disco welcomes you to another kind of
entertainment. At the center of a successful wine producin
gregion, Urgup hosts an annual International Wine Festival in
October.
Leaving Urgup and heading south, you reach the lovely
isolated Pancarlik Valley where you can stop to see the 12th
century church with its splendid frescoes, and the Kepez
church, which dates from the 10th century. Continuing on to
the typical village of Mustafapasa (Sinasos), traditional
stone houses with carved and decorated facades evoke another
age. Still traveling in a southerly direction, just past the
village of Cemil, a footpath on the west side of the road
leads to Keslik Valley where you will find a monastery complex
and the Kara Kilise and Meyvali churches, both decorated with
frescoes. Back on the mainroad you find the village of
Taskinpasa where the 14th century Karamanid Mosque and
Mausoleum Complex, and the remains of a medrese portal on the
edge of town, make for a pleasant diversion. The next village
is Sahinefendi where the 12th century Kirksehitler church,
adorned with beautiful frescoes, stands at the end of a
footpath 500 meters east of the village. |
Soganli, 50 km south of Urgup, is a picturesque valley of
innumerable chapels,churches, halls, houses and tombs. The
frescoes, from the 8th to the 13th centuries, trace the
development of Byzantine painting.
Four kilometers north of Urgup is the wonderful Devrent
Valley, where the weather has eroded the stone into peaks,
cones and obelisks called fairy chimneys. Two kilometers
west, in the Catalkaya Valley, the fairy chimneys have a
peculiar mushroom like shape, which has been adopted as a
symbol of the town. |
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Two kilometers west, in the Catalkaya Valley, the fairy
chimneys have a peculiar mushroom like shape, which has been
adopted as a symbol of the town.
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