Byzantine (Phrygian origins; expanded 8th–10th century)
Derinkuyu Underground City
Stage 1: Rose Valley
Derinkuyu is the deepest and largest excavated underground city in Cappadocia - a multi-level labyrinth plunging roughly 85 metres through a
Phrygian origins (8th–7th c. BCE); expanded by Byzantine Christians (8th–10th c. CE)
Kaymaklı Underground City
Stage 1: Rose Valley
Kaymakli is the widest of Cappadocia's underground cities - a sprawling, mostly horizontal warren first cut into the soft tuff by the Phrygi
Seljuk–Ottoman (13th–16th century)
Hacı Bektaş Veli Complex
Stage 2: Red Valley
The Hacı Bektaş Veli Complex is the dervish lodge and domed marble mausoleum of Hacı Bektaş Veli (c. 1209–1271), the Khorasan-born mystic wh
Byzantine (early-Christian hermitages; St Simeon Stylites the Elder)
Paşabağ (Monks Valley)
Stage 2: Red Valley
Paşabağ - 'Monks Valley' - is home to Cappadocia's most iconic rock formations: soaring tuff cones crowned with two, three or even four basa
Seljuk (1249, 13th century)
Sarıhan Caravanserai
Stage 2: Red Valley
Sarıhan — the 'Yellow Han', named for the warm yellow volcanic tuff of its twin carved portals — is the last great sultanhan the Anatolian S
Byzantine–Ottoman (rock-cut churches + a rock-cut mosque; inhabited until 1952)
Zelve Open-Air Museum
Stage 2: Red Valley
Zelve is three steep tuff valleys honeycombed with cave homes, dovecotes, churches and a rock-cut mosque - a whole Cappadocian village rathe
Byzantine (early 6th century, c. 500s)
Çavuşin Church (St John the Baptist)
Stage 2: Red Valley
Carved high into the cliff above the abandoned old village of Çavuşin, this cave basilica of St John the Baptist dates to the early 6th cent
Byzantine
Uçhisar Castle
Stage 3: Love Valley
Uçhisar Castle is the highest point in Cappadocia — a towering volcanic-tuff cone riddled with Byzantine-era tunnels, chambers and tombs, ri
Byzantine — monastic settlement from c. 4th–7th c.; surviving frescoes 10th–12th c.
Göreme Open-Air Museum
Stage 5: Zemi Valley
The Göreme Open-Air Museum is a Byzantine monastic valley where dozens of churches, chapels and refectories were hollowed straight into the
Greek / Ottoman (18th–19th century)
Mustafapaşa (Sinasos)
Stage 5: Zemi Valley
Six kilometres south of Ürgüp, Mustafapaşa was the prosperous Cappadocian Greek town of Sinasos until the 1923 Greek–Turkish population exch
Hittite origins; used through the Byzantine period and after
Ortahisar Castle
Stage 5: Zemi Valley
Ortahisar Castle is an 86-metre pinnacle of volcanic tuff honeycombed with interconnected rooms, tunnels and stairways - the tallest single
Byzantine
Ihlara Valley Churches
Stage 8: Ihlara Valley
Cappadocia's great green canyon: a roughly 14-15 km gorge where the Melendiz River has cut up to ~150 m down through volcanic tuff, its shad
