Sights in Goreme

Can you tell Goreme is a backpacker haven?

alternate transportation

Pigeon houses along rock cliffs - built by people

typical transportation

interesting Goreme doors. design details are typical

More Goreme doors

this color blue appears alot

Goreme attracts an interesting mix of people from all over the world. We saw alot of Australians, Germans, Italians and ALOT of Japanese traveling through.  Parked in front of the mosque one evening was a Harley Davidson motorcycle complete with leather saddlebags and huge backpack. The helmet was painted with stars and bars - so I commented to Mark that the driver was from the South...US that is.  Sure enough, the license plate was from Alabama and the driver looked like he was a star in Easy Rider. Quite a site in the small dusty town of Goreme.  I expected to see mostly young, college aged backpackers, but was surprised to find that at least half the people we ran into (not traveling in tour groups) were our age and older - but not from US. 

Pigeons are important to this area of the country.  The soil is poor quality but the area survived on agriculture (before tourism started). So, the pigeon poop provided valuable fertilizer. For centuries, the people would encourage pigeons to live in the area by carving out pigeon caves for them on sheer sides of the rocks to prevent creatures from eating the pigeons. In more recent times agriculture has diminished in importance and fertilizer could be purchased, so the pigeon caves were not maintained by humans and many pigeons were killed by critters like squirrels.  Today, the residents are trying to grow the pigeon population by working on the pigeon caves.

The housing in the area is made from carved out rock, typically with additional rooms built using stone. Some buildings now are fully stone made, but all contain interesting detail work around windows, doors and along the building facade. This carries into the inside of the buildings as well which give the stone walls alot of character.  I fell in love with the old doors and weathered wood. The white walls in each building are accented with deep colors of turkish carpets. Beautiful!