Underground Cities

Another day, another spot on the map. Today we had decided to visit one of the fabled Underground Cities of Cappadocia. At least 40 underground cities have apparently been located, although just six of these have been opened for visitors. Our handy, dandy map listed all six of these, with about as much information on the "how far" as we had for our Thermal trip. But, we had a rental car, the weather had turned colder, considerably less sunny and snowy in the upper elevations, so it seemed a good day for a drive to an Underground City. If you are going to have bad weather, why not go Underground?

I was, I confess, in the mood for an Audio Tour. I don't do these very often, for the simple reason that if you put on a set of headphones and ignore your children for long periods of time, they can get in a whole heap o' trouble. Especially wandering around in caves underground. But, we had had Mehmet to tell us about the churches, so now I was looking for a little more information on how people had lived underground.

But, we were also trying to avoid the Open Air Museum crowd. Cappadocia has many fascinating features, one of which are the Bus Tourists. These folks sweep in on enormous buses designed to ferry large groups and their luggage, equipped with cheery tour guides, cushy seats and bathrooms. In Cappadocia they hit the Open Air Museum, get a Balloon Ride, eat at the Flintstones Cave Hotel, hit an Underground City and head back to civilization.

We were trying to avoid whichever Underground City was on the Bus Tour.

Good news. We were successful.

This is the Mazi Underground City.  I confess my coward's heart really wanted to turn tail and run to the nearest Bus Tour Underground City complete with Audio Tour. But, really, where is my sense of fun!?  We had just had such a great time at the Hot Springs! So, I squared my shoulders and went with it. Good plan.

 

We met Osman, our own person guide in the small office you see above. He spoke excellent English, was a local guy (his grandfather had been born in the Underground City), negotiated a reasonable rate (children were free), handed us some flashlights and we were off.

We go Underground. Elevation here is about 1600 meters (a little over 5k feet above sea level), so there was snow here, while there was none in Goreme.

It was a fabulous tour, and the children in particular loved it. The city was nothing like what they had expected (Tom: "When I thought Underground City, I thought you dig out an enormous cavern and put a city in it, like a modern city." Hope: "I thought when a volcano erupted, the city would be underground after being buried by volcanic ash.").

But, of course, an underground city is a series of caves. It is believed that they were excavated and first used to early Christians looking to escape prosecution.

In this case, the the Mazi Underground city was pretty much in a raw state; there was no piped in music, no electricity, and no-one had swept up the cave in the recent decade. Which made it all the more appealing to the children. The only lights were our flashlights, and the occasional camera flash.

Photos, unfortunately, cannot do justice to how fascinating it is to see the underground cities. The photo below shows the stable area. You can see three carved mangers in the photo, where forage would have been placed for livestock. I don't know about you, but I can't imagine what it would be like to live underground with my horses, donkeys, goats and sheep. Cozy at least. It would have been cozy.

These you will recognize. When Osman asked us what we thought they were Tom said, "Pigeon roosts!" Whereupon Osman wanted to adopt Tom. We didn't tell Osman about Mehmet. Easier to let him think our kid is some kind of a genius.

And then the climbing began! This city is possibly eight levels deep, although very little of it is actually accessible to tourists. To give you some perspective, the largest of the excavated Underground Cities, Derinkuyu, with eleven floors extending to a depth of approximately 85 m, it was large enough to shelter tens of thousands of people together with their livestock and food stores.

Osman carried Hope (!!) and the rest of us climbed up and down the levels checking out the various underground areas. There were wineries (where there were deep indentations where the grapes were stomped), eating areas (with tables and benches carved out of rock) and sleeping areas.

The ladders she managed to negotiate on her own.

This thing is fascinating, although I'm going to drop in photo from a second Underground city we visited a few days later to help clarify what it is (wave hi to Osman!).

It is an enormous carved circular door, used as a way to keep the enemy out (this one has a hole carved in it, making it useless for its original purpose). The Christians could roll the circular boulder in front of the opening, blocking it and making it impassible form the outside. Ingenious, fascinating, and terrifying if you imagine actually being in a position to have to use it. The Underground Cities did apparently have many entrances, and one imagines that if you were a denizen, you would have pretty good siege and escape plans. But, still.

You can see in the photo below how this would work. This photo is from a Tourist Bus Underground city, where they had electricity. No piped in music, though. Also, no Audio Tour.

And one more climbing photo of poor Jeff who gets awfull short shift in the photos here. Let's face it, he's the photographer.

And after our tour, Osman treated us to some tea. "Orange" tea is Fanta soda heated up.

All and all, a very satisfying visit.

Comments

[Debbie Hanson]

Leave it to you to find the wineries in a cave city.