Kaymakli
KAYMAKLI UNDERGROUND CITY
Kaymakli is located 19 kilometres outside of Nevsehir and was first opened to tourist in 1964. The village has been completely constructed around the hundreds of tunnels of the underground city. Many of these tunnels are still used to today for storage, as stables and as cellars. These tunnels are low, narrow and very steeply inclined.
Kaymakli’s underground city consists of 8 floors, of which either 4 or 5 floors are open to the public at varying times. Each level is organised around a ventilation shaft. The first floor has a stable, which is quite small and could be an indication of other undiscovered stables on the floor. There is a passageway leading to the left of the stable into a church and to the right are various rooms, thought to have been living spaces.
The second floor is home to another church, with a nave and two apses. There are seating platforms and inscriptions of names of people thought to have been religious figures buried on site.
The third floor of Kaymakli is home to the most important area of the underground city, the storage place, wine or oil presses and kitchens. There is also an andesite stone, thought to have been used for metallurgy, with 57 holes carved in it.
The fourth floor is again home to more storage space, with earthenware jars scattered around. It is thought that due to the large number of storage rooms Kaymakli must have been home to a very large underground population.
Kaymakli is just 1 of the 36 underground cities spread across the Cappadocia region, while Kaymakli is the widest, Derinkuyu is the deepest and an 8-kilometer tunnel connects the two cities together. You can reach the Cappadocia region by Plane, Bus or Package Tour.