Eina Ahluwalia, jewellery designer

nAfter a consultancy assignment in Istanbul earlier this year, a colleague/friend, her daughter and I traveled to Cappadocia in central Turkey. This is Turkey’s most visually striking region, especially the “moonscape” area around the towns of ?rg?p, G?reme, U?hisar and Avanos, where erosion has formed caves, clefts, “fairy chimneys” and sensuous folds in the soft volcanic rock. Besides the landscape, this area is famous for medieval frescoes in rock-hewn churches, and underground troglodyte cave-cities upto eight levels deep, excavated as early as Hittite times (1900 to1600BC)

We stayed at U?hisar village Les Maisons de Cappadoce where our “studio-cave” had a terrace overlooking the Pigeon Valley. The village has a natural rock fortress, which is the tallest point in Cappadocia, and has a spectacular, panoramic view.

The most awesome part of the trip (and one of the reasons we had planned it) was that Cappadocia was directly on the path of the Total Solar Eclipse on March 29. It was amazing to watch the eclipse from between the White Valley and the Rose Valley, with other eclipse watchers from all over, sipping Anatolian wine, sharing jokes and planning to meet at the next eclipse in 2008!