Evening in Ürgüp, Turkey

We checked into the Dinler Hotel Ürgüp in the Cappadocia area late afternoon. My group of friends and I decided not to attend the Whirling Dervish performance that was scheduled for the evening. Instead, we took a taksi (Turkish spelling for taxi, since the Turkish alphabet does not contain the letter x) to the Ürgüp town center 2 miles away. My friends did some shopping for clothing and jewelry while I walked around town, marveling at the structures built next to limestone cliffs.

Below is a cafe right next to a cliff with caves above it.

And this is a parking lot for cars and minivans, note the two huge clusters of ornamental grapes on the sides of the entrance.

I wandered up some side streets following signs for some cave hotels. They had names like Royal Cave Hotel and Stone Age Hotel. It would be interesting to stay there. When I asked Metin, our tour manager later, he said that those hotels would not be able to handle a large group like ours, plus, rooms were oddly sized due to being forced to conform to the cliffs. Gate 1's small group discovery itineraries do have travelers staying in such hotels and most liked the novelty although Metin himself prefered the comfort of "normal" hotels.

It was getting dark but my friends were still shopping. So I took a taksi (100 turkish lira, about US $3) back to the hotel by myself, to get ready for dinner. Again, I forgot to take photos of the dinner buffet, but I remembered that the restaurant was very crowded because there were other tour groups at the hotel, but the food was very good.