The next stop on the itinerary was the Kapadokya region in Central Anatolia.

We arrived in the afternoon after a flight delay, and an silly airport shuttle ride that involved the driver running some errands on our time, and him getting lost. All was well though, cuz we had some friendly passengers from New Zealand and South Africa on our 1.5ish hour shuttle ride.

Even better was that we arrived a few hours before sunset, so while it was super hot that day, things were cooling down. Thus we walked a mile or two to the Göreme Open Air Museum.

Here’s some info from National Geographic:
Ancient volcanic eruptions blanketed this region with thick ash, which solidified into a soft rock—called tuff—tens of meters thick. Wind and water went to work on this plateau, leaving only its harder elements behind to form a fairy tale landscape of cones, pillars, pinnacles, mushrooms, and chimneys, which stretch as far as 130 feet (40 meters) into the sky.

But human hands performed equally incredible works here. The rocky wonderland is honeycombed with a network of human-created caves; living quarters, places of worship, stables, and storehouses were all dug into the soft stone. In fact, tunnel complexes formed entire towns with as many as eight different stories hidden underground.

Göreme was inhabited as early as the Hittite era, circa 1800 to 1200 B.C. and later sat uncomfortably on the boundary between rival empires; first the Greeks and Persians and later the Byzantine Greeks and a host of rivals. This precarious political position meant that residents needed hiding places—and found them by tunneling into the rock itself.

The site became a religious refuge during the early days of Christianity. By the fourth century Christians fleeing Rome’s persecution had arrived in some numbers and established monastic communities here. The monks excavated extensive dwellings and monasteries and created Byzantine frescoed paintings in cave chapels beginning in the seventh century, which endure in well-preserved isolation to this day.

Göreme is rich with history, but not all of Cappadocia’s troglodyte dwellings are museums. Some still serve as homes and others as hotels, which offer a truly unique hospitality experience.

The primary threats to this World Heritage site come from the forces that created it in the first place. Erosion is returning some human endeavors to a more natural state, and extensive preservation efforts are meant to ensure that the wonders of Göreme survive for another millennium. With increased tourist trade, however, humans have brought modern development and damage or destruction to some of the ancient sites they once created.

 

The museum was full of chapels with incredible frescoes, but photos weren’t allowed inside of many of them. Here’s a view of this particular complex

Similar to what we saw in Ephesos, the work here was pretty incredible…

Inside one of the rooms…

Being tourists

A look back at the area. We got there roughly an hour before the museum closed, so it was pretty empty!

Looking into one of the many valleys, it was neat to see all of the locations that were tunneled/carved into…

Sunset

A close-up of the up rock tower from the previous photo

The park closed, so we had to get going. All along the road were more and more of these complexes, and there was also a network of trails that ran through the valley.