Kaymakli Underground City

Doing an underground city was the main reason for me to choose a green tour.

Caves may have first been built in the 8th–7th centuries BC. In Roman times, the inhabitants, now converted to Christianity, expanded their caverns adding the chapels and Greek inscriptions. The city was greatly expanded and deepened in the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) era, when it was used for protection from Muslim Arab raids during the four centuries of Arab–Byzantine wars (780–1180). These cities continued to be used by the Christian inhabitants as protection from the Mongolians 14th century. After the region fell to the Seljuk Turks of Persia, the cities were used as refuges from the Turkish Muslim rulers, and as late as the 20th century the inhabitants, were still using the underground cities to escape periodic waves of Ottoman persecution. When the Christian inhabitants of the region were expelled in 1923 in the population exchange between Greece and Turkey, the tunnels were abandoned.

The city has a depth of 8 floors, and only the top four are open to the public, There are stables, a church, extensive storage and living quarters and even a winery. Everything is organized around the ventilation shafts which go down the full depth. There are many defensive features such as narrow, twisting tunnels and holes that allowed defenders to spear the invaders.

Around 8,000 people lived in here in times of war.Read more