Cappadocia, Turkey 17-18 May 2024 I The best sites on the Red and Green tours!

This video covers the best sites on the Red Tour (north) and the Green Tour (south) of Cappadocia. For Göreme Town and the spectacular Göreme open-air museum, see my previous video. For the very scenic hot-air balloon ride in Göreme, Cappadocia, watch my next video!

Watch my other Turkey videos: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjply4VDAlSI5z1W_UJXeOY-N6UXuoHa7&si=ezV0mijVQOqPoNoL

Cappadocia is an ancient district in east-central Anatolia, situated on the rugged plateau north of the Taurus Mountains, in the centre of present-day Turkey. The boundaries of the region have varied throughout history and its famous rock-cut churches and underground tunnel complexes from the Byzantine and Islamic eras, and even earlier times, are scattered throughout the countryside.

Between 9 to 3 million years ago, eruptions of Mount Erciyes and Mount Hasan covered Cappadocia in fine ash particles, which welded together and packed down into a deep layer of tuff. This rock erodes easily, and persists in a dry climate, or if protected by harder rocks. The rain and wind then sculpts the tuff into domes, cones and columns. With a cap of harder rock the erosion is exaggerated, twisting into "fairy chimneys".

Neolithic pottery and tools found in Cappadocia attest to an early human presence in the region. Excavations at the modern town of Kültepe have uncovered the remains of the Hittite-Assyrian city of Kanesh, dating from the 3rd millennium BC. The tens of thousands of clay tablets recovered from the remains of an Assyrian merchant colony at Kanesh are among the oldest written documents discovered in Turkey.

The earliest appearance of the name of Cappadocia dates from the 6th century BC, when Cappadocia’s feudal nobility was dominated by a Persian satrapy and Zoroastrian temple cults were widespread. Because of its rugged terrain and modest agricultural output, the area remained underdeveloped in antiquity, with only a few significant cities.

The small village of Göreme (see my previous video) is the obvious place to stay at in Cappadocia, and also to make excursions to the north and south. The Red Tour takes in the main sites in the northern part of Cappadocia, and the Green Tour does the same in southern Cappadocia. Your hotel in Göreme might help you make tour arrangements in advance, or you could make arrangements on location in Göreme, or online.

The most amazing sites in Cappadocia are listed below, and are included in this video!

The Uchisar Castle valley with its cave dwellings lie close to Göreme and well worth seeing, as are the fairy chimneys and larger cave dwellings at Pasabag Valley. The Zelve Open-Air Museum houses even larger complexes of dwellings and also Byzantine churches. The Pasabag Valley and the Zelve Open-Air Museum are close to one and other, a short distance north of Göreme village.

The Derinkuyu underground city and Selime Monastery where my favourites:

The ancient city of Elengubu, known today as Derinkuyu, goes more than 85 meters below the earth's surface in 18 levels of tunnels. Its the largest excavated underground city in the world, and was used for thousands of years by the Phrygians, Persians and Byzantine Christians. Housing up to 20,000 inhabitants for months at a time, it was finally abandoned in the 1920's by the Cappadocian Greeks during the Greco-Turkish war.

The astonishing rock-cut Selime Monastery date back to the 8th or 9th century BC. It is the largest
religious structure in the Cappadocia region with a cathedral-sized church cut directly into the volcanic tuff. Inside some of the churches, original Byzantine frescoes can be found. Around the 11th century the Monastery was converted to a caravanserai, and finally abandoned in the 16th century.

Cappadocia information: https://www.bbc.co.uk/travel/article/20220810-derinkuyu-turkeys-underground-city-of-20000-people

Music: Jean Dar - Spring
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