Southeast of Ankara

Founded in ancient times Kirsehir became, in the Middle Ages, the center of the Ahi Brotherhood, a Moslem sect whose moral and social ideals played an important role in the spiritual and political life of Anatolian towns. Among Kirsehir's many fine Seljuk buildings are the Cacabey Mosque of 1272 (a former astrological observatory), the Alaeddin Mosque of 1230, and the Ahi Evran Mosque beside which is the tomb of the founder of the Ahi sect.
The road to Nevsehir and Cappadocia passes through Hacibektas, the town where Haci Bektas Veli settled and established his Bektas Sufi order in the 14th century. The dervishes who followed the sect's tenets of love and humanism were housed in the monastery which includes a mausoleum and mosque.
Nevsehir, a provincial capital, is the gateway to Cappadocia. In the town itself the hilltop Seljuk castle, perched on the highest point in the city, and the Kursunlu Mosque, built for the Grand Vizier Damat Ibrahim Pasha, are among the remaining historical buildings.
Violent eruptions of the volcanoes Mt. Erciyes (3916 meters) and Mt. Hasan (3268 meters) three million years ago covered the plateau surrounding Nevsehir with tufa, a soft stone comprised of lava, ash and mud. The wind and rain have eroded this brittle rock and created a spectacular surrealist landscape of rock cones, capped pinnacles and fretted ravines, in colours that range from warm reds and golds to cool greens and greys. Goreme, known in Roman times as Cappadocia, is one of those rare regions in the world where the works of man blend unobtrusively into the natural surroundings.
Dwellings have been hewn from the rock as far back as 4,000 B.C. During Byzantine times chapels and monasteries were hollowed out of the rock, their ochre-toned frescoes reflecting the hues of the surrounding landscape. Even today troglodyte dwellings in rock cones and village houses of volcanic tufa merge harmoniously into the landscape.
Urgup, a lively tourist center at the foot of a rock riddled with old dwellings, serves as an excellent base from which to tour the sights of Cappadocia. In Urgup itself you can still see how people once lived in homes cut into the rocks. If you wish to buy carpets and kilims, there is a wide selection available from the town's many carpet dealers.
At the center of a successful wine producing region, Urgup hosts an annual International Wine Festival in October. Leaving Urgup and heading to the south, you reach the lovely isolated Pancarlik Valley where you can stop to see the 12th century church with its splendid frescoes, and the Kepez church which dates from the tenth century.