Description: According to the
Rough Guide to Turkey "the small provincial town of
Niğde has few remaining monuments of any great interest" – it is "little more than a landmark on the Kayseri-Adana road".
This is very unfair to Niğde. I may only have been staying for one night but I personally thought that Niğde was a perfectly lovely little city. With good transport connections, Niğde forms the southern gateway to Cappadocia. As a bustling and seemingly prosperous place in its own right and with good amenities like banks, pharmacies, hotels and restaurants it does warrant a closer inspection. It is handy for several of the sites of southern Cappadocia, thereby saving you the hassle of going on exactly the same tour as everyone else in Göreme.
Part of my liking for Niğde (pronouced ‘knee-deh’) may have something to do with my stay at the
Otel Şahiner. Of the four hotels I stayed in on this trip to Turkey this was my favourite. It was smart, plush, comfy, and well run. The lobby is furnished with leather chairs and settees and decorated with large photographs of the site of Cappadocia. An internet café is off to one side with ten PC stations. It has 35 rooms – ours had great beds, good air conditioning, a clean bathroom with hairdryer, and a TV with international satellite channels. There was also wi-fi in the room. Frankly, the entire room just struck me as being a cut above any other place I had stayed in the Middle East.
There is a restaurant on the top floor. I only went up there for the included buffet breakfast. This had a real spread, from cereal (cereal!) to toast, bread and jam, salad, cold cuts of meat and the inevitable hard-boiled eggs, and a choice of juices, tea or coffee.
In the basement there is a small gym, and also a nice little room called the ‘
Ottoman Corner’. This had cushioned settees, a dart board, tavla and chess boards, and several other games to play. It proved to be a great place to spend the evening playing card games.
If you hadn’t guessed, I really liked the Otel Şahiner. I thought it was a super hotel, and I hope the management keep the standards up!
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