Turkey known for its culture history and beaches. on this first post of my tour through Turkey I will show you Cappadocia known for its fairy chimneys, rock houses, outdoor activities, hot-air ballooning and its underground cities with there being underground cities in the area Derinkuyu is the most famous and largest underground city it could house, people with room for all their food storage and livestock. believed to be built by the ancient indo-european people called Phrygians then later used and expanded by Christians fleeing war and persecution.
The Underground Cities of Cappadocia Turkey Photo Gallery
Derinkuyu has five floors open to the public, they all surround a hundred and eighty foot deep ventilation shaft that was also used as a well. The underground city was equipped with wine and oil presses, cellars, stables, large dining rooms, chapels storage rooms, and graves shown here is the door to the city, besides large rock doors there’s also holes in the ceilings for natives to drop Spears on people entering the city connected by a five mile long tunnel is the city of Kaymakli. Kaymakli has a lot more space open to the public and you can explore the city for hours with nearly miles of tunnels you can get lost easily.
These cities were used during the Arab Byzantine Wars for protection against Muslim Arabs during the th century to the th century, then later by Christians during the Mongolian incursions of the th century. the cities were then used by refugees during the Ottoman rule of the area to flee persecution as late as the th century until the population exchange of where Turkey expelled their Christian population to Greece and Greece expelled their Muslim population to Turkey. the city was rediscovered in when a local found a mysterious room behind a wall in his home Found my own little place This tunnel, is kinda cool i’m gonna go back and try to find claudia above-ground cappadocia is full of unique geological formations called fairy chimneys.
The locals of towns like Goreme found out the rock of the fairy chimneys were soft and then carved houses out of them. I was fortunate to find a few abandoned fairy chimney homes hiking off the path most are hard to get to as they require climbing the walls with help from small indents carved into them, this was a defense strategy most were made into churches and abandoned during the population exchange of, although they stayed secret as only the owners knew how to find them from here I ventured off to some fairy castles built in the large fairy chimneys and access by steep stairs (Muslim call to prayer) the castles provided beautiful views of the town built around it Goreme has beautiful outlooks for reading the sunset and in the morning you can catch a ride on an air balloon stay tuned for our next episode where we will explore the history and travertines of Pamukkale and be sure to comment as I will bring you more posts from Turkey, Greece, Colorado and around the world. help this post out by liking and commenting.
