Cappadocia Blue Tour: Kaymakli Underground City & Mustafapasa – Full Day
Cappadocia Blue Tour: Kaymakli Underground City & Mustafapasa – Full Day
Cappadocia
Highlights
- Visit Cappadocia’s less touristy places like the beautiful old Greek town of Mustafapasa
- Reflect in the tranquil Keslic Monastery and see its ancient frescoes
- Hike through Soganli Valley, see the rock-hewn churches and meet Turkish locals
- Go through the tunnels of Kaymakli, the widest underground city in Cappadocia
About
This expedition heads to Cappadocia’s lesser-known locales on a “Blue Tour” away from the crowds.
We start the day with a visit to Mustafapasa Village – also known as Sinasos, the city of the sun – a beautiful town with preserved scenes from the past. We will see how the Turks and Greeks lived together in the Ottoman era before World War I, at the Greek houses and the orthodox church of St. Nicholas, alongside the “madrasah” or institution for Islamic instruction.
We will also go to the Keslic Monastery, a labyrinthine collection of churches where many monks lived in the 7th-13th centuries. Frescoes are carved and painted onto the face of the rocks, and the monks’ quarters and kitchen complete the spiritual hermetic vibe.
We continue en route to Soganli Valley, and as we walk through the beautiful landscape we will see churches and cloisters that housed the Byzantine monks of old, colombieres or dovecotes that house pigeons, and villages that house Turkish locals! The “hike” will last 1-1.5 hours.
After lunch, we’ll make for the citadel of Kaymakli to see the Kaymakli Underground City, one of the largest underground settlements in Cappadocia. As we explore the four floors opened to the public (the rest is yet to be uncovered), we will experience a bit of the deep history contained in these ancient dwellings, constructed around and connected through a hundred subterranean tunnels.
“The Blue Tour [satisfies] repeat visitors, like myself who have already been to all the popular tourist attractions.” – Natalie, USA