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URGUP
Urgup, a lively tourist center at the foot of a rock
riddled with old dwellings, serves as an excellent
base from which to tour the sights of Cappadocia. In
Urgup itself you can still see how people once lived
in homes cut into the rocks. If you wish to buy
carpets and kilims, there is a wide selection
available from the town's many carpet dealers. These
characters are as colorful as their carpets, offering
tea, coffee or a glass of wine to their customers and
engaging in friendly conversation. If sightseeing and
shopping haven't exhausted you, the disco welcomes you
to another kind of entertainment. At the center of a
successful wine producing region, Urgup hosts an
annual International Wine Festival in October.
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AROUND URGUP
Leaving Urgup and heading to the south, you reach the
lovely isolated Pancarlik Valley where you can stop to
see the 12th century church with its splendid frescoes,
and the Kepez church which dates from the tenth
century. Continuing on to the typical village of
Mustafapasa (Sinasos), the traditional stone houses
with carved and decorated facades evoke another age.
Still traveling in a southerly direction, just past
the village of Cemil, a footpath on the west side of
the road leads to Keslik Valley where you will find a
monastery complex and the Kara Kilise and Meyvali
churches, both of which are decorated with frescoes.
Back on the main road you come to the village of
Taskinpasa where the 14th century Karamanid Mosque and
Mausoleum Complex, and the remains of a medrese portal
on the edge of town, make for a pleasant diversion.
The next village is Sahinefendi where the 12th century
Kirksehitler church, with beautiful frescoes, stands
at the end of a footpath 500 meters east of the
village. Soganli, 50 km south of Urgup, is a
picturesque valley of innumerable chapels, churches,
halls, houses and tombs. The frescoes, from the 8th to
the 13th century, trace the development of Byzantine
painting. Four kilometers north of Urgup is the
wonderful Devrent Valley where the weather has eroded
the stone into peaks, cones and obelisks called fairy
chimneys. Two kilometers to the west, in the Catalkaya
Valley, the fairy chimneys have a peculiar Mushroom
like shape, which has been adopted as a symbol of the
town.
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