CAPPADOCIA TOURS

The ancient name for Cappadocia is ‘Katpatuka’, which is believed to mean ‘Land of Beautiful Horses’.

The region owes its visual style to Mounts Erciyes and Hasan, which erupted millions of years ago. The ash settled into a soft, malleable rock known as tuff, and was covered in places by a further layer of basalt lava. It was when the weather eroded the softer material beneath that the pillars took on their unusual shapes. The softness of the tuff made it easy to carve out the rock to create the troglodyte dwellings and cave churches for which the area is so well-known.

Cappadocia was one of the most important places in the early growth of the Christian religion. The first Christians trying to escape from the Roman soldiers settled in the region of Cappadocia which was so suitable for hiding. Here there were and able to continue to practice and to spread their religion. Saint Basileious from Kaisera and Saint Gregorios from Nyssa settled in Cappadocia. In 647 A.D., together with occupation of Kayseri by Muaviye, Cappadocia suffered Arabian invasions and domination of the Seljuks in 1072, was added to the lands of Ottoman Empire in 1399 by the Ottoman Sultan Yildirim Beyazit. Cappadocia is a place of endless extremes: gentle contoured hills.