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You are here: Home / Archives for churches

Exploring Goreme and Capadoccia

June 27, 2012 By Jillian

Goreme is probably best known as the city from where to explore Capadoccia’s famous rock formations, but there’s actually a lot more to see in and around Goreme than just interesting rock formations. After reading this post, it may be time to look for some last minute flights and go for a long weekend.

The rock is the most unique aspect of the region. Hardened lava, the rock is relatively easy to carve and became the most popular building material in the region. Instead of building up, the local people built in and down. That’s right; they dug into the rock to create expansive cities, monasteries and churches. Monolithic buildings (made from one rock, also called rock hewn) are rather unusual in the world, and there are only a handful of examples of ancient monolithic architecture. We were fortunate enough to see monolithic churches in Lalibela, Ethiopia and in Goreme, Turkey and the city of Petra in Jordan.

The rock hewn churches in Goreme are unique mostly because of the incredible painting and decoration that remains on their walls. They are considered to be some of the best examples of post-iconoclastic Byzantine painting in the world. More than 1,000 churches have been found in the area, some with complete Byzantine wall-paintings, while others, even after restoration are still severely chipped, showing signs of older paintings underneath.

Rock Hewn Chuch in Goreme Capadoccia Turkey

If you go to Goreme:

Take a trip out to see the rock formations or better yet take an air balloon ride at dawn. Then head out to see the underground cities (you can rent a car relatively inexpensively in Goreme or take a tour). The Goreme Open Air Museum, where most of the churches are congregated is a short walk from town. We rented mountain bikes in Goreme and took to the foot paths and canyons in the area, eventually having to hike our bikes out of the canyon in an unpleasant uphill scramble.

Filed Under: Destinations, Headline, Middle East, Turkey Tagged With: churches, outdoors, religion

Lalibela: Rock Hewn Churches

May 6, 2010 By Jillian

Lalibela is the second holiest site in Ethiopia, a significant Ethiopian Orthodox pilgrimage site, one that UNESCO has given significant funds to over the last decade for restoration, maintenance and site protection. How then were we able to go in through the back (not on purpose!) and view several of the famous rock hewn churches without paying?

Maybe UNESCO should rethink their site security plan. In the end, we found a ticket office and paid, and in an ironic twist of fate after we paid our tickets were checked at all of the subsequent churches. For our steep 300 birr (over 20USD) entry free we legally accessed the city designed as the second Jerusalem and its 11 monolithic large rock-hewn churches and a few pitch black tunnels.

If I sound disenchanted it’s true, I am. The churches themselves are architecturally interesting, having been cut out of rock, so they sit below ground in carved out holes. They certainly have an ancient world feel to them (or perhaps that’s just because they’re dark and dusty inside) which leads to an Indian Jones type aura. But, when holy priest after holy priest tells you to take his picture while holding centuries old ritual objects in front of centuries old frescoes and paintings, reminds you to turn on your flash and then balks that the “voluntary donation” you’ve given him for your picture isn’t enough, the whole experience gets ruined. Of course we want to be polite and respectful, but some of the priests were borderline aggressive when asking for tips that you just sort of shuddered at the thought of another picture. Trust me, between our conservation fee and donations for photos those priests are making sufficient income. Having lived in Italy where centuries old paintings aren’t shown the light of day let alone flashed a hundred times a day, I was so disappointed to see protectors of their own religious tradition throw UNESCO’s very clear guidelines out the window and encourage flash just to get a bigger tip.

The tip-happy priests didn’t completely ruin the Lalibela experience. In fact, we had a refreshingly nice time in Lalibela. From the moment we stepped out of our hotel we were greeted by children, who once they realized they weren’t getting any money from us, were happy to chatter away about their most recent lesson in school, what they wanted to be when they grew up and where we were from. As is typical in Africa, admitting we were from America was greeted with cries of OBAMA! And very proud displays of their primers which have not only a very patriotic red, white and blue design, but also a head shot of our famous president. Although kids in Africa can be annoying at first, when they give you their sob story for money, a pen or sweets, these kids were actually delightful and animated. One boy asked me to test him on his world capitals, and although he could name correctly every capital of Europe, he wasn’t able to name the capital of Canada, which was OK, he said because its cold and there is snow there. Sorry Canadians, it appears Ottawa doesn’t hold any exotic appeal in Ethiopia.

Filed Under: Africa, Ethiopia, Headline Tagged With: churches, kids, religion

Me Encanta Bogota

July 16, 2009 By Jillian

Today is our last day in Bogota, on the one hand we can’t believe we’ve stayed here almost a week and on the other we wish we could spend a few more days. We’ve really enjoyed Bogota, it is a modern city with public transportation, parks, cafes and plenty to do.
Perhaps we’re enamored because its so different than Central America, or because we have great CS hosts, but either way its been a great start to South America. I can honestly say that its the first city we’ve been to since March where I could see myself living.

There’s been a lot to do here, we’ve hit a lot of museums but the one worth highlighting is the Museo de Oro (Gold Museum). An incredible collection of Pre-Columbian gold objects, the museum is really a masterpiece. Collections of religious and ritual items, corporal decorations, and an incredible statue depicting a religious procession thought to have inspired the story of El Dorado, the legend of the golden king whom the conquistadors sought for but never found. Even more amazing than the shear number of objects were the intricate designs made in gold.  The miniature offerings for the Gods, often depictions of daily life from objects in the home to humans, were breathtaking. We even found a mini hammock, which unfortunately we could not add to our ever growing hammock collection.

Bogota doesn’t lack for the strange and bizarre either. Outside of Bogota we stumbled upon another of the supposed “seven” wonders of the world, the Salt Cathedral. Now you may ask yourself- what is a salt cathedral. Well… it’s actually a cathedral carved into a huge salt deposit 200m underground. What else would you do with a big hole in the ground, right? While it was neat to be in an entire complex created of salt, it was a bit strange. I’ll let the pictures tell the rest of the story, but it is worth noting that the tour guide admitted to us that it had fallen to the “eighth” wonder of the world. No surprise really.

Living here in Bogota for a week has been wonderful. The air is generally crisp like a perfect fall or spring day, chicken buses of Central America have been replaced by a modern bus system, and the terrain and vibrant city life remind us of San Fransisco without the ocean, complete with a traveling Andy Warhol exhibit.  What a great start to South America!

Filed Under: Colombia, South America Tagged With: churches, cities, museums

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