Cappadocian Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve morning we headed out to Derinkuyu underground city first thing.

Derinkuyu is an ancient multi-level underground city of the Median Empire extending to a depth of approximately 60 m. It was large enough to shelter approximately 20,000 people together with their livestock and food stores. Sure glad I wasn't one of them.

It was fun exploring the Derinkuyu was fun, although it kind of brought out the claustrophobic in me, especially as I was bent over a sleeping baby in the carrier navigating narrow staircases.

Next we headed over to Ihlara Valley to walk along the snowy riverbanks and visit some more cave churches cut out of the valley walls.

Eva's favorite? They ducks, of course.

Next we headed back to Goreme to enjoy a wonderful Christmas Eve dinner cooked in the wood-burning stove.

Evaëlle's entertaining restaurant ritual: She would ask for "wawa", then take the glass of wawa and proceed to fill it with the food we had given her, then she would drink the mushy mix of food and the adulterated water together. Kinda disgusting, but it kept her content during meals. 

Next we went back to our hotel to act out the nativity. Evaëlle was Mary this year, Jonas was a donkey, Jaxon a shepherd and Daniel was Joseph. Mary REALLY loved riding the donkey.

In fact, she never really got past that and was very angry when it was time to do something different.

I guess it is to be expected when you give a 1-year-old the lead role.

Her doudou was baby Jesus.

A Christmas Eve treat of Baklava and an eclaire.