Cappadocia : Gumusler Monastery

Info :  A short bus ride 10km northeast from Nigde  will take you to Eski Gümüsler where a wall of rock punctuated with caves concealed the remains of a substantial monastery set around a courtyard until it was rediscovered in 1963. Inside its church were found some of the finest of all the Cappadocian frescoes, with images of the Annunciation, the Nativity and the saints dating back to the 11th century. Much has been made of an El Grecoesque elongated Madonna with a Mona Lisa smile; sadly, this only seems to have materialized after clumsy restorative efforts. Upstairs more soot-blackened frescoes appear to show hunting scenes. In the rush to admire the paintings it’s easy to overlook the evocative reminders of monastic life that surround the courtyard: rock-cut graves, huge storage pots built into the ground, even a rolling-stone identical to those used to close off the tunnels in the Derinkuyu  and Kaymaklı underground cities.