Walking the Ihlara Valley
Ihlara Valley, Turkey
October 17, 2008
Ihlara Valley, Turkey
October 17, 2008
The guide book said it could turn out to be a highlight of my visit to Turkey. This is a strong stuff coming from a book that manages to find a superlative for just about every site it considers worth mentioning. They turned out to be dead accurate again and a day spent walking the stunning Ihlara Valley gorge from one end to the other will be one of my favourite memories of Turkey. After a few weeks solid of admiring the remains of ancient human civilizations it was refreshing to just enjoy natural beauty for hours on end.
The Ihlara Valley is a narrow, 16km long gorge formed out of soft volcanic rock. Running through its base is a gentle river surrounded by patches of lush greenery set against the high barren walls of the valley. It’s so narrow that it’s virtually hidden below the surrounding landscape which made it an ideal location for some of it’s more creative inhabitants. Early Christians fleeing the Romans found it an ideal hiding place and the walls of the Southern end of the valley are peppered with the rock-cut caves they turned into richly painted churches.
Mid-way up the valley is a tiny village that does a good trade cooking up fresh trout from the river to hungry tourists. Further north, beyond where most tourists venture the landscape is all the more stunning. Eventually the trail emerges at the village of Selime where a fantastic rock-cut cathedral waited to be explored before I flagged down the local dolmus to take my back to Ihlara for the night.
