Travel with me #113 : Devrent Valley and the world famous Chez Galip pottery!

Dear Steemit Friends:

I once again welcome you back to the enigmatic Cappadocia Region of Turkey. Can you tell that I have a little obsession with this beautiful place? Probably one of the most surreal landscapes that I have ever visited, Cappadocia was once the home two three large active volcanoes which spread rocks, ash and destruction for hundreds of miles around. Once these volcanoes became dormant, the land became to erode. Over millions of years the wind, rain, snow, wind and sun has transformed the landscape and has left unique rock formations scattered all over the region - unlike any you have seen before.

The region is most famous for its Fairy Chimneys, pillars of rock rising straight up into the sky and its ancient cave dwellings. These Fairy Chimneys were created by the forces of nature and millions of years in time. Today we will explore some Fairy Chimneys that are slightly different to those we have seen together before, you're going to love their unique shapes!

A Breakfast with a View

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Before I begin to explore the wilderness around me, there was definitely time for a little bit of luxury. My hotel was located right in the heart of Cappadocia in the town of Goreme. Goreme is right in the centre of most of the tourist attractions in the region and is the most established town for tourists that still maintains much of its history and scenic views.

The breakfast at a hotel says a lot about its quality and style, I think. Often overlooked, the breakfast shows if a hotel really cares about paying attention to the details. It's so easy for a hotel to put on pre-made breakfasts that taste stale and contain the same old boring foods. I am happy to report that my hotel for the night was not one of these hotels! The spread laid out before me for my selection was varied and delicious.

Of course, always one to make friends my breakfast companion was this gorgeous little cat. I think perhaps he lives at the hotel and keeps travellers company during their stay. He must have been so hot in his fur coat, even though the heat of the day was just beginning. He didn't seem too worried about the heat just yet though and was content to just purr and rub against my legs as I walked up and down the food to make my choices for my breakfast.

Now before I get on to the food I need to re-admire this view. You couldn't wake up feeling sleepy in a place like this - the view took my breath away. I think there's something really special about eating somewhere with an incredible view. You will see many beautiful views with me today but the ones where you can sit, eat and stare are my favourites. Perhaps it's the mixture of something so 'basic' to life as eating, juxtaposed against such majesty of this landscape in front of me.

Whatever it is that is so special about eating somewhere so breathtaking, needless to say it took me a long time to finish my meal! With the sun still low in the sky and the air temperature still quite cool I relaxed and enjoyed the view while taking in all of the flavours on my plate.

The colours, the colours, the colours! This was not your usual breakfast. With everything from olives to nuts to fruit to cold meats and cheeses, I was in love with the variety. In addition, the little pastries were to die for. The butterfly, heart and flower shapes above were kind of like light, flaky, buttery biscuits. Somewhere between a biscuit and a pastry. Everything felt light, fresh and was so beautiful.

My mouth was watering before I'd even taken my first mouthful. Simplicity is often best and this was beautifully simple. The chef had done nothing more than provide guests with the freshest, tastiest foods, in their simplest forms. What a great way to start the day as I looked out upon the landscape that I was soon to explore!

Devrent Valley or Imaginary Valley

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My first stop for the day was to be Devrent Valley, but when I arrived at the car park to jump on my tour bus I was greeted by these wonderful camels! Unfortunately they weren't for my tour today but I did have to say hello and take some pictures before being whisked off on my adventure for the day.

The camel is a very important animal in Cappadocia as it has been used for thousands of years by caravans of travelling traders. The camel is the perfect animal for such a job since they can cover great distances, carry heavy loads and do not need water for many months, if necessary. That makes crossing barren landscapes such as these much easier for ancient traders who would travel with their goods for hundreds of miles to sell and trade.

Camels are still quite common in the area, but are no longer used for trading. They are used for tourists! These very handsome creatures were getting ready to take a tour around the local area on a camel trekking tour. What an interesting way to see the area - the way the ancient caravan traders used to!

But now it was time for my tour! And I was going a little further away so I was taking a tour bus to reach Devrent Valley. Devrent Valley has an alternative name, Imagination Valley which is a very apt name, as you will soon discover. The name comes from the idea that many of the different rock formations found in the valley, are not just the normal straight fairy chimneys that I have shown you in previous posts. They have many different shapes and, just like spotting a shape in the clouds, can resemble many different things!

Arriving in the valley, there was the usual assortments of stalls selling little trinkets to tourists. These very 'normal' examples of human habitation were completely at odds to the surroundings. Even here, where my bus dropped me off, I could begin to see the strange shapes of the rocks in Devrent Valley.

The valley itself doesn't boast the same churches and ancient cave dwellings as many of the other areas of Cappadocia. Imagination Valley has reportedly never been inhabited by man but I am sure millions of people have come to marvel at the natural stone sculptures, created by mother nature herself. Let's go and explore!

These first rock formations weren't supposed to be anything specific I don't think but I thought they looked like men on stilts with tiny heads! I don't know why. Perhaps the imagination of the valley was getting to me already. How do those tiny heads of rock still stay standing a top these spires? I thought they must be able to fall off at any moment. A little disappointed with the 'amazing' sculptures, I continued on and then saw...

This! It was unmistakably a stone camel, just like a stone sculpture of the camels that I had just seen in the car park earlier. I must remind you, friends, that this is completely carved by the elements - mother nature herself. The huge stone camel is 20 meters tall and 12 meters long and as you can see, currently surrounded by fences.

Most places in Cappadocia are not so heavily tourist-ed that areas have needed to become off limits, but as you can see the camel is one of these exceptions. And why? My tour guide told me that they needed to make the camel off limits because so many tourists were trying to ride him!! Oh the image I had in my head of a tiny little person sat on his back was so hilarious that I couldn't stop giggling for a while.

Needless to say, riding this camel is very dangerous since he is so tall. I told my guide that perhaps people should have stuck to the real camels that we saw before in the car park and he said, 'yes, but this one spits less!'. You see, if you didn't know, real camels often spit at people they don't like!

A goodbye kiss for my camel friend.

Can you see the hand in the middle of one of these pictures? Use your imagination...

I think that each tour guide in the area had their own set of imaginary things that each rock looks like to them. It was more fun making up my own! The picture above is clearly a ghost with a hat on... Can you see it?

My tour guide said these looked like mushrooms... I decided that they looked like two meerkats wearing hats!

This one looks like a Killer Whale (Orca) with its head on the left and its fin at the top!

OK so in reality, most of the rocks in the valley were quite hard to distinguish as anything. The camel was clearly a camel but the rest were a bit suspect. Rather than making your imagination run wild, most of the different shapes just challenged your imagination. They challenged your imagination because they probably didn't actually look like much!

Still, it was very fun coming up with the most stupid ideas about what each thing was. If such a thing is possible, you can start to get used to seeing the fairy chimneys that you see all around the region. Devrent Valley certainly had very different rock formations and it was a new challenge to the eyes. Where it started to become easy to gloss over the fairy spires as 'normal', these shapes carved by nature certainly were anything but normal.

A family of five with the youngest child on the left and Mum and Dad on the right. See it?

As I sat on my bus I waved goodbye to Devrent or Imagination Valley and smiled to myself at all of the different games we play as people. Our imaginations are one of the biggest things that make us who we are as a human race. It doesn't matter where you are from or how you were raised - we all imagine things.

It was lovely hearing what my tour guide thought he saw in the rocks, and making up my own little stories. So much of our culture is based around story telling. Our ability to imagine something and create a story around it is what bonds us as people and helps us communicate.

Did all of the rocks look like things? Well, no. But were we able to come up with a story around them? Yes! And that's really special I think. As you grow up, you don't pretend or imagine as much as you used to. A special place like this encourages you to imagine, to play, to experience, to story-tell - and I loved it!

Avanos and Chez Galip Pottery!

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Avanos is a little town in Central Anatolia just north of the province's capital. With a population of around 12,000 Avanos is historically famous for its earthenware pottery. The pottery industry in the town dates back to the Hittite era and remains one of its main sources of income.

The town is situated next to the Red River, which is the longest river in Turkey, and it is this river which produces the beautiful clay used for the making of ceramics. It is estimated that pottery has been a central craft of the region since 2000 BC.

Today I visted Chez Galip, the most famous place to see and buy the unique type of pottery found in the area. Owned by Galip Korukcu who is a master potter, the shop and pottery studio is one of the greatest artistic marvels in Turkey, and indeed the world.

I always seem to make animal friends! This little guy welcomed me in

Galip Korukcu himself welcomed us to his shop and it was a real honour to hear him talk about the history of the pottery in the region. Galip first learned pottery from his father while growing up in Avanos where he and his three brothers lived. The pottery workshop has been in their family for six generations.

Galip helps preserve the traditional style of pottery making and painting that has been performed in the region for hundreds of years. He is well renowned all over the world and even museums in France have pieces made by him. His wife who is a Dutch artist and their three daughters all still work in the family business.

The business isn't just about selling the beautiful pottery that he and his family make, it is also about preserving the local art form for future generations. Mr Korukcu is dedicated to running workshops for potters and amateurs alike, to help inspire and teach the joy of this style of pottery making.

You can see here the beautiful colours of the pottery. This craft is not just about the pottery, but about the painting on them. The colours are vibrant and the detail and patterns are extremely detailed. In the top left of the above photo you can see an example of how a plate would start off, and the design would be slowly applied and then kiln fired to bring out the beautiful colours.

So many plates! What beautiful pieces of art.

Chez Galip also make lamps, statues and many other things from pottery!

As you can see, the colours are some of the most important parts of the designs. They range from blues to greens to reds to oranges. The patterns that Galip creates are unique and diverse. I love how the different colours and styles were grouped in and around his shop. The presentation of the pieces was as much a work of art as the pieces themselves!

Galip and his team pride themselves on making pottery in five main styles. First, and of course the most important, is his 'family' designs. These are his original patterns that he uses to represent his family and the generations of people that have worked on the pottery in his family. He then also does more historical designs, looking back at the history of pottery from the area and keeping those traditions alive. Of course, being an artist, he also experiments with more contemporary designs in pottery, showing that ceramics are still a very important and relevant form of creation, in a world where so many things are now made of plastic or metal! Finally he also works with geometric and floral patterns which you will see amazing examples of in all of these photos.

You can see that many of his designs are also textured and shaped!

Traditional pottery studios are generally based, once again, in cave like structures or buildings with very thick stone walls. This makes regulating the temperatures inside the workshops much easier so the artists have a consistent temperature to work in. That means that when the clay is wet it won't dry out too fast when it's a hot day outside! As you can see, the walls of Chez Galip bear the marks of the traditional tools used to carve the stone here.

Here you can see the show room with all of the beautiful pottery, traditional arches and hand carved stone walls. This is still a working pottery studio so there was also plenty of unpainted pottery ready to be worked upon by the master artists here.

If you look in the bottom right picture you will see a traditional pottery wheel. There is a big stone circle sunk into a gap in the floor, with a wooden post rising up out of it. What the potter would do is sit behind the wheel and start to 'push' the round stone circle around with his feet. Once he'd got it spinning really fast he would then allow the wheel to continue under its own momentum and start to shape the bowl, plate or vase with his hands. As the wheel slows down he then pushed with his feet again to keep it going! Amazing.

Meeting Galip Korukcu himself!

My dear Steemit friends, I've so enjoyed exploring this area of Turkey with you today. My favourite part had to be Chez Galip, meeting Galip Korukcu the master potter and admiring all of his beautiful ceramic art. You all know how much I admire works of art and even more how much I enjoy beautiful colours. His work shows off that of a truly world class artists and I enjoyed spending so much time walking around his workshop just admiring the beautiful pottery. If you ever have a chance, definitely go and visit him. I didn't have time but I know that a pottery workshop here would be a once in a lifetime experience.

If you have enjoyed today's adventure, don't forget to leave a vote and give my blog a follow for more of these adventures in the future! Of course, the most important as always, please comment below with your thoughts and I very much look forwards to connecting with you all. I have missed being able to talk to all my Steemit friends!

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旅行里最期待的事情，就是用一顿丰盛的早餐，拉开新的一天的序幕。推开房门，金色的阳光把眼前大大小小，奇形怪状的石头染成金黄。顺着烤面包的香味，还有餐盘刀叉碰撞的清脆叮当响声，就能找到这家洞穴酒店的露台早餐厅，餐厅门口，一只花猫优雅地走过来，好像是要热情招待我的到来，早晨的阳光奔放而火辣，为了避免沐浴阳光下的人们过度晒伤，酒店贴心的拉起了顶棚和窗帘，而我渴望在阳光下舒展自己，伸个懒腰，抖掉旅行中的疲惫，又不想被阳光晒得晕晕乎乎，所以我选择坐在天台的沙发上，一眼望去，错落有致的洞穴里，排列着鳞次栉比的小屋，有了绿树和山石的陪衬，远远看过去清晨卡帕多西亚的美景就像一幅迷人的油画。

因为夏季的卡帕多西亚气候炎热，所以早餐的食物主要以水果，蔬菜和新鲜烘烤的面包，熏肉为主，真的很难想象，可以在仿佛油画的风景里，享受一顿幸福的早餐。结束早餐之后，我们出发前往卡帕多西亚最奇特、分布最集中的火山石锥群，同样它也是整个地区侵蚀地貌最明显的山谷。其中最让我期待的就是那个著名的骆驼形状岩石，被称为"动物岩层"。 刚刚走到门口，就看见两只披着土耳其民俗披肩的骆驼，颜色一深一浅，悠闲的晒着太阳，我立刻走过去和它们合影。而身后不远处的骆驼岩石，在真骆驼的对比下，更是栩栩如生，从远处望去，骆驼岩石很傲娇的站在直刺云霄的石林之上，一种一览众山小的感觉。

无论从地面还是空中的视角，这颗可爱的骆驼岩石都在石林当中脱颖而出，几乎可以当作是这里的地标了。走进看看，眼前数百个高度从几十米到一百多米不等的石锥紧密排列，聚集在一起，好像拍摄集体照一样。这里天然形成的动物形状岩石，有塔形的、柱形的和锥形的，真的非常令人不可思议，感慨这里简直就是岩石界的动物园，容你尽情发挥想象力与童真，你便会在这些仿佛一节节小竹笋的岩石里面，找到猩猩岩石，还有蛇形态的岩石，从不同的角度看，都会呈现出不同的形态。在全景照片里，这一片石林的景色真的很震撼，就像被精心设计过的雕刻艺术品，当地独特的岩层形成了无数鬼斧神工的精灵烟囱，表面包着一层薄而坚硬的玄武岩，保护着下面白色松软的凝灰岩。从而免遭风雨的侵蚀，日久天长才形成了眼前著名的烟囱石奇妙景象。其实在这里，非常适合慢慢行走静静欣赏，在这些奇形怪状石头里，你会感悟到大自然的神奇力量。

欣赏完大自然的杰出艺术作品，再一起去看看当地孕育而生的传统艺术与民俗吧。接下来我们来到了阿瓦诺斯，这里被称为陶器之乡，因为整个小镇都是由陶器而闻名的。红河穿过这座小镇的中心，所以这里的人们得以选取红河里的红粘土制造产出极具当地特色的陶器。我选择去参观Chez Galip瓷器店，这家瓷器艺术工作坊近几年逐渐在国内有了名气，是因为几年前东方卫视的大型旅行真人秀节目“花样姐姐”曾经来这里和大师学艺，制作手工陶瓷。知名陶艺家Galip大师的形象很有辨识度，艺术范十足，发型很狂野也很有个性，简直就是土耳其陶瓷界的爱因斯坦嘛，我有幸和大师愉快的合影。走进工作坊，照片墙上还可以找到当年花样姐姐旅行团过来学艺时候的照片，画面上李治廷和志林姐姐都在很认真的，手脚并用的制作陶瓷，非常有趣。整个瓷器艺术工作室建在洞穴之中，充满了浓厚的土耳其艺术气氛，大师非常热情的为大家讲解了当地瓷器制作的历史和发展历程，以及制作过程，大师还亲自演示了陶瓷的捏造手法。

其实对于我来说，对于瓷器并不陌生，因为在中国，瓷器也有着悠长的历史，但是土耳其的瓷器给了我全新的艺术体验，不仅融合了伊斯兰的当地文化，也与中国晚清时期古朴淡雅的瓷器风格不同，土耳其瓷器采用了很多异型造型的设计理念，并且用色浓重，色彩极其鲜艳，非常具有视觉冲击力，让我完整的体会了一场截然不同的文化艺术盛宴。在参观了还在着色过程中，刚刚制作一半的瓷器之后，我深刻的体会到土耳其瓷器上，这样繁琐密集的图案和复杂的颜色变幻，真的需要超强的技术，才可以让土耳其民俗风格的图案完美的呈现在瓷器上。并且不同的花色需要配合不同的陶泥土制作，很难想象这满屋子色彩缤纷的瓷器，都是做工精美，世代相传的佳作，然而它们竟然都是由起初全白的底色一点点画上去的，在瓷器捏造成型后，还需要自然风干、烘烤、上图、上色、再烘烤、上釉等，真的是一门精致的艺术呢。在隔壁的珍宝屋里面， 我还看到了极具当地特色的夜光陶瓷作品，真是让人百看不厌呢，可惜作为游客的我不方便带走易碎的瓷器，不然真想买几个回家做纪念呢。

在欣赏美妙土耳其民俗瓷器的过程中，我更加深入的了解到了当地的风土人情和文化背景，同时土耳其人们最喜爱的萌宠猫咪也作为一种独特的文化形象，出现在了当地的瓷器艺术里，还了解到原来郁金香是土耳其的国花，因而出现在许多陶瓷制品的创作元素里，并且在许多瓷器上看到的一棵树原来是Family tree，满屋的瓷器制品，似乎洋溢着土耳其这个国家亲切的小幸福和有爱的文艺精神，这些美好的图案，绚丽的色彩，让人看到之后，心情自然变得美好，内心阳光而充实。今天的土耳其自然人文探索之旅就要告于段落啦，之后还有更多有趣的土耳其游历故事想要分享给大家。

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