It was our last day en Göreme and we had to catch a bus at 4PM to take us to the train station for an overnight train ride to Erzurum in the east of Turkey.
We checked out of our cave room at the Flintstones and left our packs in the lobby. While Gaby went and checked her e-maiI I went to bike Rose Valley.
I grabbed a meatball sandwich and a big water to take with me and rented an OK but not great front suspension hard tail bike. As Göreme was the location of the European Mountain Bike Championship last year I felt comfortable that I could get a pretty good ride in. The owner of the bike rental place rode ahead of me on a scooter and led me out to where the best biking was.
From there it was mile after mile of trails through the grape vines and sculpted valleys and beautiful formations. Some of it was on dirt roads and some of it single track. The trails went in all directions so you could literally spend the whole day biking the hilly trails in the area and never go over the same part twice.
Whenever I would come across an area wiwith doors cut into the stone I would go check it out. Most of those were pretty unexciting no longer habitated cave houses but occasionally I would stumble across an old church cave wiwith graves in the ground and fresco's painted on the walls and ceiling. The special part of it was the unknown factor of is the place you are entering another old habitation or is it a church with beautiful fresco's?
After exploring the trails for a couple of hours I started climbing a singletrack trail into the high mountain of Rose Valley. It wound up and up until there was a sign pointing up to to a church on top of the mountain. I followed it up, sometimes carrying my bike up the steep stairs until I was at the top. The views up there were amazing.
A local had a cafe stand at the church and over a tea and my sandwich and I exchanged notes with a couple of Spaniards and a Dutchman who had biked from Holland and was on his way to Syria (by bike!) Afterwards I paid the entrance and checked out the fresco's of the church (see picture) which were in great shape with the exception of the eyes which had been scraped out by the Muslims in years past.
It was time to get back to Gaby so I screamed down the mountain singletrack and found another way back to town, then turned my bike in.
Between the biking, exploring the caves and chatting with the people on the mountain I was gone for 4 hours. And the biking and the views were amazing!
From there we made our way to the train to go to Erzurum......
Steve
We checked out of our cave room at the Flintstones and left our packs in the lobby. While Gaby went and checked her e-maiI I went to bike Rose Valley.
I grabbed a meatball sandwich and a big water to take with me and rented an OK but not great front suspension hard tail bike. As Göreme was the location of the European Mountain Bike Championship last year I felt comfortable that I could get a pretty good ride in. The owner of the bike rental place rode ahead of me on a scooter and led me out to where the best biking was.
From there it was mile after mile of trails through the grape vines and sculpted valleys and beautiful formations. Some of it was on dirt roads and some of it single track. The trails went in all directions so you could literally spend the whole day biking the hilly trails in the area and never go over the same part twice.
Whenever I would come across an area wiwith doors cut into the stone I would go check it out. Most of those were pretty unexciting no longer habitated cave houses but occasionally I would stumble across an old church cave wiwith graves in the ground and fresco's painted on the walls and ceiling. The special part of it was the unknown factor of is the place you are entering another old habitation or is it a church with beautiful fresco's?
After exploring the trails for a couple of hours I started climbing a singletrack trail into the high mountain of Rose Valley. It wound up and up until there was a sign pointing up to to a church on top of the mountain. I followed it up, sometimes carrying my bike up the steep stairs until I was at the top. The views up there were amazing.
A local had a cafe stand at the church and over a tea and my sandwich and I exchanged notes with a couple of Spaniards and a Dutchman who had biked from Holland and was on his way to Syria (by bike!) Afterwards I paid the entrance and checked out the fresco's of the church (see picture) which were in great shape with the exception of the eyes which had been scraped out by the Muslims in years past.
It was time to get back to Gaby so I screamed down the mountain singletrack and found another way back to town, then turned my bike in.
Between the biking, exploring the caves and chatting with the people on the mountain I was gone for 4 hours. And the biking and the views were amazing!
From there we made our way to the train to go to Erzurum......
Steve
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