Derinkuyu

So on day two, we didn’t really make any concrete plans. Cappadocia has a handful of standardized tours, but we didn’t want to take one, so we made our own. We found a cab driver and negotiated with him to take us to our sites of interest.

First up was Ανακού, or Derinkuyu underground city, an ancient multi-level underground city in Nevşehir. The city is large enough to have sheltered approximately 20,000 people together with their livestock and food stores, and reaches depths of 60-meters below ground level. Derinkuyu is the largest excavated underground city in Turkey, and one of several underground complexes found across Cappadocia.

According to the info sign out front, not all of Cappadocia’s underground cities have been discovered, and as mentioned above, these cities were used for shelter. Many have hidden passageways that lead to homes above ground, traps were laid throughout the dwellings, livestock were sheltered on the ground levels, and the upper floors often contained wineries and communal kitchens. Some of these kitchens contained special ovens, called tandir, which are still in use today. Communication holes were made, so warnings could be given efficiently (one didn’t have to run throughout the network of tunnels to spread messages).

After reading the info, we bought our tickets and went inside!