Goreme Open Air Museum

On our first full day in Cappadocia we hitched a ride into Urgup with Suleyman and took the dolmus  to the Outdoor Museum of Goreme.

The front walls of these dovecotes have eroded leaving the individual little niches exposed.  The proliferation of doves is responsible for the mineral rich soil which supports Cappadocia's fruit trees and vines..

The first inhabitants of these valleys are thought to have been Hittites, carving their homes out of the soft volcanic tufa, 2000 years before Christ.  Many are still inhabited today.

Following the fall of Constantinople many Christians fled to the central Anatolian Plains, finding natural homes in the caves of Cappadocia. Their, churches and monasteries, complete with Byzantine frescoes and iconography survive and are preserved here in Goreme as part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Cappadocia.