The Turkish region of Cappadocia, a region of exceptional natural wonders, in particular characterized by fairy chimneys and a unique historical and cultural heritage, boasts one of the most dramatic sights in the world.
Visiting Cappadocia is such a change from visiting many other busy bustling sights all over Turkey. It is a great pleasure to wander in the vast open space filled with captivating natural attractions which have seen human history dated back in the Bronze Age.
While in Goreme Open Air Museum , the conical formations resulting from the volcanic eruptions that took place millions of years ago, just follow the path up to the top of one of the ridges where a spectacular view of the fairy chimneys awaits you. The natural cone formations contain caves and labyrinths. As early as the third century, those chimneys became a hiding place for early Christians who fled persecution from the Romans, and then later from raiding Muslims. In modern tourism, many caves have been turned into cave houses for tourist stays and the lunar-like setting of Goreme Valley has become popular for hot-air ballooning.
Many say the extremely unique landscape of Cappadocia resembles some scene in a Star Wars movie and yet you may be surprised to discover that no major commercial movies have been filmed there. It would be a perfect setting for movies such as Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter series.
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This was an unexpected delight – we only intended to visit a couple of the churches but went into every one of them. Fascinating and takes around 1-2 hours to visit the site.
While the audio guide has some helpful nuggets, a guide is probably best to get the background story on each of the sites. We did it on our own with the audio guide and then listened in to a few tours along the way which helped.
According to our guide, this site housed 33 churches but only a few of them were open to the public. The biggest one was on the left side before you reach the ticket office. The frescoes there were the most stunning. I especially liked the ones that chronicled the life of Jesus and the one with the smiling Madonna. The…
This is a very pleasant hike, especially if you can get transportation up to Uchishar, enter the valley there, and walk back to Goreme. The landscape is surreal, the valley dotted with little pockets of agriculture, and it's such a soothing, unearthly experience to hear the call to prayer from Goreme echoing through the valley.
We were staying in Uchisar village so the castle was just a few minutes walk up the hill from our accommodation. The castle is hewn out of the rock and worth a look. It only cost TL 5.00 and could be completely explored in 40 minutes.
Right next to the castle there are some other rock dwellings that you can…
Everybody goes to Goreme open air museum where you can't take photos in the caves. The morning we were here there were virtually no more than 50 people in the whole place. It was peaceful and quiet and you could get a great sense of the life of the monks and nuns who lived there.
Great view and interesting story. I had never known that pigeons could be anything but annoying. To see that people had dug into cliffs to provide haven for the pigeons was amazing.
The formations are fabulous and the people so friendly
We went in mid March when the weather is a little more comfortable for walking around the site. The entry fee was a very reasonable 15TL per person, which can be bought at the ticket window at the entry.
Best to have cash, as I can't remember if a card system was available.
The cafe and museum gift shop is…
The guide explained us the usage of each area visited. It is amazing how people could explore the underground building inside a place to live for the dangerous times. It is indeed an interesting place to visit, and you do not have every day the chance to see something…