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The earth saves some human history - Ercolano - Herculaneum

The previous post in this series is here..

Original plan was to get the car in Naples and use it only to drive to and from airport. We looked at the maps, parking, traffic etc. and realized that in order to save time, it is best to drive to the buried city of Herculaneum first and enter the archeological site as soon as it opens. From there drive to Pompeii and finally drive back to Sorrento to the hotel, change and go to the Kayak starting point.

The morning traffic was surprisingly not bad to Ercolano where the Herculaneum buried village(or town) was. Once there, we missed a turn and ended up in a one way street that was as wide as the car. Pretty much had to fold the mirrors and drive through that lane and make it to a wider lane. Then folks directed us to the right parking spot. It was harrowing.

Nothing compared to what those poor folks felt in 47 AD when they were all buried in ash in a few moments.

Thanks to that event, we get to see what their life was like. The walls, the floors, the amphoras, statutes, frescos, graffiti, everything was just fascinating.

If you ever go to the Amalfi coast do not miss seeing Herculaneum. It may be smaller in size than Pompeii, but the houses and villas are grander. This was the rich peoples area of the time and you can clearly see the difference. By the time we got out of this place the temperatures were already climbing.

Here are some photos.. took me some time to process them in HDR. Knew when I shot them that it will need HDR processing, so did not worry about the light at that time.

some more images..

A long video of this site.. there was so many rooms and I tried capturing 10 second clips of every room or new thing and it all added up to almost 10 minutes!

We got some bottles of water outside the parking lot and made a dash to get to Pompeii after this. We were told to expect long lines everywhere, traffic and a parking nightmare in Pompeii.

So off we went..

Anatolya's famous pottery- at Avanos Kapadokya

The previous post in this series is here..

Our next stop on the tour was a short drive away to Avanos. We crossed a river and saw a lot of brick makers on the way. Then we came to a rock gallery that was pretty much cut into a cave. The video says it all.. the have some amazing artists who have been hand painting these pieces for 30 to 40 years and it is fascinating to watch their hands play with that brush. “You get good at what you practice” is something we hear in yoga class.. that came to mind.

Not a single false step and with a lot of imagination! We walked through the gallery, then got a little pottery demo, and finally it was time to say bye. Our fellow tourists bought stuff, but given we were traveling without check in bags, just had to be content with watching. They do ship to the US but that was for larger pieces.

Right outside this place Ali Baba was selling butta .. there was a heated debate on having that before lunch. Again by a 3:1 veto the ladies decided to go for it. My logic vs. Ali Baba’s silent marketing where he gave them a look and roasted the corn with such care… I had no chance!

Then we stopped by a large rest stop place that had a buffet. All the tour buses stopped here. There were plenty of vegetarian options. Our guide had lunch tickets. Anything else like bottled water or juices were extra. (so keep some Euro or Turkish currency handy!). After lunch we were off to see more rock formations ..

Here are a few pictures of our Avanos experience..

and a video highlights reel..


Learned a lot in this segment. Tulips came from Turkey! Tulips were the symbol for god in ancient Islam. The tree of life which we had seen just two days back in Topkapi palace but had not connected as a “tree of life”, etc.

First we thought this was a marketing stop. Turned out to be one of the highlights of the tour! The artwork in this place is amazing.. just be careful when walking around. You break it, you bought it and most of the pieces are in the few hundred dollar range!

Goreme Open Air Museum - Kapadokya

The previous post in this trip series is here..

After watching the balloons rise and having a nice breakfast we were picked up at the lobby by our tourguide and driver for a Viator all day tour of Kapadokya. She was a very nice person trying to manage the time between giving us history and trying to have fun. She did an excellent job.

To thank her we participated in her promo reels!

Our first stop in the tour was the Goreme open air museum. This place has some amazing history during post crucifixion times when Christianity was a forbidden religion. The cave monastries and the paintings inside that date back to 700 AD were amazing. Unfortunately no pictures in most places allowed, understandably as the flash might damage what is left of the pigments.

Here are the pictures.. the first one was by Jr. who was trying to get the sun flare to land on us.. I got to teach her geometrical optics during this process! She was temporarily impressed with daddy for a good 30 seconds.

There is also a lot of history on St. George here that I found fascinating.

and here is the short video highlight reel..

On the whole this was an amazing place. It was good we started the trip here because by the time we got out to the exit, temperatures were already in the 90’s! We were glad to get back to air conditioning for a while..