Cappadocia Hotels

404 not found

Go to Home Page

Cappadocia is the ancient and modern name of an area in Middle Anatolia, surrounded by fairy chimneys, ancient volcanoes, breath-taking valleys and is about 3 hours away from the capital city, Ankara. It has always been a popular region throughout history and many civilizations have passed through the region. Many civilizations such as Assyrians, Hittites, Persians, Romans, Seljuks and Ottomans lived in the area and left us some artifacts from their time. One of the most important civilizations for Cappadocia history is undoubtedly The Hittites. They were the first civilization realizing that the rock formations in Cappadocia are easy to carve. The Hittites started to carve some houses into the rock formations instead of building houses, which is more time consuming in Cappadocia. The idea of having easy accommodation and fertility of soil made Cappadocia always a place of desire and many civilizations had been in the race of ruling the race. One of them was the Persians and they were the masters of domesticating horses in the ancient world and they domesticated the wild “Yılkı” horses in Cappadocia. They kept using these animals in transportation and other civilizations around this region started to call the area as “Katpatuka” which was meaning “the land of beautiful horses” in Persian language. The word changed over the time and it became Cappadocia. Our modern name is actually Persian:) The Romans were the ones controlling the region after Persians. They were following their Pagan religion; believing Zeus, Hera, Aphrodite, Hermes and much more. But, Christianity started to become an important religion and many people believed this new religion. The biggest problem in front of this new religion was actually Romans, because they did not let people believe this new religion freely as the only official religion in Romans was their Pagan religion until 4th century. The persecution of Roman soldier made people suffer in the region a lot in the 1st century. Then, people started to carve their churches into the deeper areas of the valleys in Cappadocia and have a secret religious life in places where there are valleys. On southern part of Cappadocia, there are no valleys to hide and it is quite a plain plateau. People there carved secret underground cities that they could live for temporary times when the soldiers were around. They thought of everything in these underground cities: living rooms, bedrooms, storage rooms, churches, water wells, wineries, graveyards and much more. The second usage period of the underground cities is between 7th and 11th centuries when the Arabs were using Cappadocia as a resting place while they are going to Constantinople (Istanbul) to conquer. They tried to conquer over 30 times and each time they went through Cappadocia, as it was the quickest way, so each time the people in Cappadocia used the underground cities as shelters again. Kaymakli and Derinkuyu Underground cities are in UNESCO World Heritage list since 1985. After The Romans legalized Christianity in 4th century, people in Cappadocia could finally live peacefully under Roman Empire flag and could make their visible churches in the area. First churches were carved in Goreme (today’s Goreme Open Air Museum) and the number of churches raised around 700 in total in the entire region. They carved 35 churches back in the history in Goreme Open Air Museum and 9 of the churches are still possible to visit. Seljuks were the ones coming after the Romans and they were Muslims when they reached Cappadocia. Because of a rule in Muslim religion that you can not force anyone become Muslim, the people of Cappadocia, who are Greek Christians, started to live together. The Ottomans were also as tolerant as Seljuks and they kept living altogether peacefully. After the foundation of Turkish Republic in 1923, Turkish and Greek sides agreed to change the population and from then we do not have many Christians living the area. Cappadocia region is a totally geological wonderland of which a smaller triangular area between Urgup, Avanos and Uchisar has the most important, historical and natural beauties. Most of the Hotels in Cappadocia, valleys, churches and museums are located in this triangle. Because of this reason, The Best Cappadocia Hotels are built in this area to serve their guests with the best possible view of the valleys and rock formation.