Derinkuyu Underground City

About this place

In 1963 a man in the town of Derinkuyu was enlarging the cellar under his house, knocked through a wall, and found a passage behind it, then another, then an entire city sinking about 85 metres into the rock. It is the deepest excavated underground city in Cappadocia: estimates run from thirteen to eighteen levels in all, eight of them open today, and the ministry itself admits that what you walk through is barely a tenth of the whole. The figure usually quoted is twenty thousand people sheltering here with their animals and food stores; nobody can prove it, but it gives you the scale. Who dug first is disputed, and the Phrygians may have started it before Christ, but what you see is the work of Byzantine Christians who enlarged it as a refuge from raids. The upper levels are stables, storerooms and grape presses, because animals could not be taken deeper, and on the second level a barrel-vaulted hall, thought to have been a religious school, is the roomiest space you will stand in. The lower you go, the narrower and steeper the passages become, until you reach a cruciform church deep in the open levels. Look out on the way for the heavy round stone doors, rolled across to seal each section from the inside only, and for the ventilation shaft that drops 55 metres and doubled as the well: it is why the air at the bottom is still fresh. The thing that decides a family visit: the stairs are narrow, steep and low, and you will walk bent double for minutes at a stretch, so there is no place for pushchairs, tired knees or anyone who dislikes enclosed spaces. Children from about six or seven adore it and treat it as an adventure; fit grandparents tend to do the upper levels and turn back before the stairs narrow. The temperature holds at 13 to 15 degrees all year, which makes Derinkuyu the best refuge from August heat in Cappadocia, and in winter the inside is warmer than the snow-covered surface, though the drive from Göreme may need care. The town sits about 30 km south of Nevşehir and about 40 km from Göreme, some 45 minutes by car via Nevşehir, and most visitors arrive on the Green Tour, which pairs it with the Ihlara Valley and the Selime monastery in a single day. Independent travellers take a dolmuş from the Nevşehir bus station to Derinkuyu; the entrance is a few minutes on foot from the town square. Signage inside is sparse, so a guide or a booklet doubles the value of the visit. At midday in summer queues build in the one-way tunnels, and the fix is simple: be at the gate at eight in the morning or after four in the afternoon.