Cappadocia - Göreme

After traveling all night from Kaş, through Antalya, we finally arrived in Göreme, in the heart of Cappadocia.

Cappadocia has always been a heavily volcanic region, and over the years volcanic ash and pumice accumulated in layers, its color depending on its specific geologic content. As time passed the malleable ash was eroded down by the elements, causing strange geologic shapes where the ground was harder. The people who inhabited the region took advantage of the soil, which is hardened when in contact with the air but soft otherwise and dug out cities for themselves from the stone. The area was inhabited by Christians, Hittites and Asyrians who all took advantage of the caves for shelter.

The effect of the geologic shapes and carved cities is quite surreal and looks like you are on the moon. Many of the towns in the area had completely subterranean cities which the inhabitants dug out for defensive purposes. There are 36 in the area and most were dug around the 7Th century BC. In times of peace the people lived and farmed above ground. When the cities were attacked though, the men would stay and fight while the women, children and elderly would hide below for up to 6 months. The caves had huge rolling stone doors to close the caves off and had holes from above where they could dump hot oil on attackers. These underground cities had housing, food storage, animal stables with mangers, communal kitchens and wineries.

When you go down into these cities, it is like you entered a large and complex Swiss cheese. Windows from room to room, paths going this way and that and more levels of rooms above and below. It is quite and experience and as the rooms are quite small and enclosed the large tour groups that go through make everything quite crazy. Not recommended for those that are claustrophobic.

It was a lot of fun to explore the area around Göreme and check out the weird formations with the ancient houses dug out of them. Most were just carved out of the rock and had windows and holes for storage, but no other decoration. Occasionally though you would find old churches that had hundreds of years old Byzantine fresco's painted on the walls. Most fresco's depicted biblical scenes. Many are in pretty bad shape as the local Muslims purposely defaced the christian paintings. They especially scraped off the eyes as they believed the power of people is in their eyes.

The town of Göreme where we stayed is really magical. It is a town of only 2100 situated among the fairy chimneys where daily life co-exists with all of the tourists without loosing its authenticity. From Göreme various valley go off in different directions each with its unique eroded characteristics. You can join tour groups in the area to check out many of the major sites, or you can rent scooters to explore on your own. We did both and had two very different but equally memorable experiences.

We had been looking forward to exploring this region of Turkey and it was every bit as amazing as we had expected. If you ever visit Turkey we strongly suggest seeing the Cappadocia region and specifically around Göreme. It is really special.

Gaby