Turkey Pamukkale - Cappadocia

Today begins with a visit to a leather factory. Kay and Trevor star in the fashion show, wearing the beautifully soft and light lamb jackets. It's a local production, and very slick too. Many of the group leave with big bags and bigger smiles. 

Lunch is a another tiny family restaurant, where the specialty is freshly made gösleme, apparently delicious. 

We eventually arrive at the truly magnificent white calcium terraces - Travertines - in Pamukkale.

Legend has it that Cleopatra once bathed here, and the many tourists wandering around in bathers obviously believe in the healing powers of the hot springs. There are huge bus loads of them- Asian/Russian/European tourists - and we share our mega-hotel and it's mega-buffet with hundreds of them. 

It's another long drive on Tuesday to Cappadocia via a museum in Konya, but there are 2 hourly coffee/cigarette/food/petrol breaks for guide Saman, driver Ali and us. 

The landscape is dry at this time of the year, with poor-looking villages and towns. Hills are all around, and fields now empty of potatoes, onions and beets.

We stop at a museum and an old caravansary, where traders along the Silk Road sheltered and were protected overnight, in these thick-walled fortresses.