This morning we woke to find balloons flying right over the top of the campground. A truely wonderful sight. Following that exciting start to the day and a leisurely breakfast we eventually walked a little way down the hill to the (apparently) famous Goreme Outdoor Museum there we joined a real throng of tourists to visit and explore a series of caverns carved out of the rock. Most of the caverns had in the past been used as Christian Churches and in their day had been heavily and elaboratey decorated. In many cases there was enough remaining of the decoration to give a real glimpse of what these must have been like.

In the afternoon, after recovering from the trip to the Museum, we walked across the road from the camp ground folowing a sign to another "church". Here for a small fee we got to explore a whole complex of caverns and connecting tunnels by ourselves. It must have taken amazing effort to dig these cavern/tunnel complexes as even though the rock is soft compared to other rocks it is still tough (compressed volcanic ash really).

One of the interesting features we noticed in a number of places were large discs made of stone standing on their edge. These discs were standing in a little alcove at the side of a tunnel. We eventually worked out (and confirmed with one of the attendants) that these were doors. To close a cavern or tunnel the disc would be rolled into the tunnel thereby blocking access. A piece of stone would be placed under the edge of the disc to prevent it being rolled back out of the way; very ingeneous.