Göreme Açık Hava Müzesi

This is a must see when in goreme. The murals inside the churches are well preserved and very pretty. It’s a short 20 – 30 min walk from goreme town center. Be sure you stop at the church downhill, it’s included with your ticket, and it contains the more impressive of murals.

Bring a guide so you can get the most out of this incredible place. It’s really amazing! The carved rooms– functional and religious– as well as the intricate paintings are unbelievable, and have exciting stories to tell. Be prepared to climb some hills and fight some crowds, both are challenging but unavoidable. They don’t detract from how fascinating this complex is.
Make sure to visit the church down the hill from the main museum, too… It’s part of the same ticket and very much worth it, especially if you study the scenes painted in the main chapels and look for the same ones in the secondary chapel. Very cool to spot repeated scenes, as well as to be able to identify what’s unique within each space.

Goreme Open Air Museum is one of the must visit landmarks of Cappadocia. The museum is about a kilometer away from the Goreme town center. The museum comprises of varieties of natural fairy chimneys, which were used as churches, chapels, and other living areas.
The museum is pretty crowded and there are lots of groups, so prefer visiting the museum as early as possible. And do not forget your sunglasses and hat because it is really hot during the summer.
Museum card is accepted, except for the entrance of Dark Church, where you have to pay additional fee.

My wife and I squeezed the Goreme Open Air Museum into our Cappadocia visit.
This place can get very crowded with tour groups, so I suggest visiting it right when it opens (in April it was 08:00). When it first opens, there is almost no one there. By 10AM the big tour buses are already flooding the museum.
The complex is a collection of cave churches and monastic dwellings. Most of the paintings and drawings and paintings were vandalized or were in poor condition, but there were the exceptions. Most of the skeletons you see in the graves were placed there from other sites and are not original (according to our guide in a separate tour).
It is worth paying the extra fee for the «Dark Church» as it has the best preserved paintings which covered 95% of the church.
We did a self-​tour and without rushing were able to complete the museum within 1:45. This allowed us to visit the museum and go on a separate day tour (after coordinating our pickup from the museum with our tour company).
If you want to see early Christian churches in Cappadocia would definitely recommend this museum.
Also, do not forget that your museum ticket grants you entrance to the church outside the normal complex (worth checking out).

My review is based on the open landscape across and around the actual museum and the snack area.
Our group walked up with 15 minutes left before the actual museum closed. So we took advantage of the snack bar and vendors right outside the gate. I was very disappointed with our chicken/​cheese wraps that we purchased. They were burnt and stale tasting. Plus, it was very pricey!
Walking up to the museum you can walk thru many individual vendor shops. I found a lot of neat trinkets, lamps, and souvenirs. You can find just about anything you might be looking for, but I do suggest looking around and price shopping before buying. They were pricey compared to other shops in the surrounding shops.
I loved walking out past the museum and around the actual museum to get some very neat panoramic pictures. Plus, you can climb in some of the individual houses/​caves. It’s a fun hike that is easy for any age. (My youngest didn’t have too much trouble hiking up and down the hills.) I cannot wait to go back to go inside the actual museum and see what I can find.

I would definitely go out of my way to come back here. It’s one of the most interesting landscapes I’ve ever seen!

The Museum is a bit of a let down, but worth it to see the paintings and things that are still in the caves and surrounding churches. We explored and hiked through the area surrounding the museum and enjoyed it more than the actual museum.
The museum is great for seeing the old paintings, and graves that are scattered throughout the place. The one church, which can be seen at an additional charge, is amazing. The paintings are bright and still maintain their vibrant colors. There are a few caves that have the pantry and kitchen, which is interesting to see.

This is a fantastic place and will be probably be a highlight of anyones trip to Turkey. Do pay for the one church that charges an extra fee within the complex. The frescoes are worth it. Also there is another church you can see outside the compound, across the street, if you show your ticket. Again worth doing. I hate the overuse of the word surreal. It actually applies here. You’ve never seen anything like it. The caves, the cliffs, the churches, very unique.

One of the best and most intreresting open-​air museums in the world. It’s a monastic complex with many rock churches, decorated with frescoes dating back to a period between 10^th-​13^th centuries AD. Located at Goreme valley in Cappadocia, it’s also one of the most visited places in the region.
The entrance ticket costs 20 Turkish Liras (as of 2014 – 2015) and with this you can visit all the churches there except the «Dark Church» (Karanlık Kilise) which has a separate entrance ticket.
You can NOT take any photos inside the churches and there are a limited number of visitors allowed inside at the same time due to space restrictions at these small churches.
You can find a «museum shop» with many souvenirs, as well as other shops just around the main entrance. There is also a WC on the site.

Without a doubt, get here before noon and even before 10:30am if possible. We got there around 10:30am and by the time we left at about noon, I wouldn’t have wanted to deal with the crowds. I really think getting there when things aren’t so busy is a big key to enjoying the open-​air museum.
We had gone on the Green Tour the previous day and even though we saw many churches on that tour, our tour guide really recommended that we still check out the open-​air museum. As she said, «although it’s full of ABCs, it’s still very interesting and important to the region.» As she explained to us, ABC = Another Bulls*** Church.
If you get here before noon, I would say about 1.5 hr is long enough to walk around and see everything.

The Goreme Open-​Air Museum is one of those things you kind of have to do of you are in the area, but honestly, it’s very underwhelming. Most of the rooms you go in are churches, and really, they all look about the same to me. The Dark Church, which costs an extra 10 TL, was the best preserved of the churches and was cool to see.
Tip: Buy the Museum Pass for 45 TL. It gets you into Goreme Open Air Museum, Dark Church, Ihlara Valley, Kaymakli Underground City, Derinkuyu Underground City, Zelve, and a couple other places.
If you are driving yourself to the museum, there is free parking across from the entrance. Do not be a fool like me and pay 6 TL down the street.

«Truly Open-​Air Museum»
Definitely worth the visit.. We visited Goreme Open Air Museum as part of a guided tour. There are atleast 5 – 6 ancient churches here and perhaps more around.
Once we arrived at the Open Air Museum, it just seemed few more rock-​cuts but as we started to explore and absorb the atmosphere we started appreciating the surroundings as the area was very well preserved and it’s worth paying to see these very old rock-​cut churches, it makes for a great educational part of your journey and just walking inside these caves were very cool.
Also, this open-​air museum has the best preserved cluster of caves all within walking distance.

Goreme open air museum, was one of my favorite sites in Turkey. The landscape is made up of solid rock that has been weathered by erosion, causing many multi peaked mountain tops and valleys. What makes it so interesting is that people decided to carve an entire city into the mountain side! Houses, stairs, churches, tables, chairs, separate rooms, all carved into the mountain side! Some of the houses date back to the 3^rd or 4^th century, and people actually lived in them up until the mid 1980’s! No that’s not a typo, 1980’s! After entering some of them i can see why, it was like 90º outside, and a cool upper 70’s inside! Natural air conditioning!
In the 4^th century Cappadocia was known as the land of the 3 saints. You can see many of the structures were churches and still have the original paintings and carvings on the walls. Entrance fee to the open air museum is 15 TL ($ 7.50) and well worth it. There is however the dark church which cost an additional 8 TL to enter. Named the dark church because of a small window which only allows a small amount of light, which has preserved the pantings on the beautiful ceiling, the dark church dates to the 12^th and 13^th century.
Cappadocia was definitely my favorite spot in Turkey.

Wirklich sehenswert, doch bei aller Begeisterung die anderen Täler in der Gegend nicht vergessen
Höhlen sind teilweise sehr überlaufen

Un des musts de la Cappadoce pour admirer les chapelles peintes cachées à l’intérieur des cheminées de fée.
Si vous né succombez pas à la magie du mystique au moins vous devriez succomber à celle du lieu et du spectacle à l’horizon des cheminées de fée dressées vers le ciel…
Non loin de là une petite promenade dans la vallée de l’amour s’impose…

Ein absolutes MUSS man SEHEN!!!
Die Landschaft, die Höhlen und die Gastfreundlichkeit der Türken ist etwas sehr Außergewöhnliches.
Ein Hotelzimmer in einem Cave-​Hotel zu buchen kann ich nur empfehlen!!!

Ce site est vraiment impressionnant !
Les peintures de ces petites églises sont superbement conservées dans certaines.
Mais, au delà des peintures, la construction même de ces églises dans les montagnes est quelque chose d’original :)
A découvrir ! :)

Das UNESCO-​Weltkulturerbe Göreme-​Kappadokien liegt im Zentrum eines Gebietes ehemals intensiver vulkanischer Tätigkeit.
Diese vulkanischer Tätigkeit prägte bis heute das heutige Landschaftsbild entscheidend.
Betroffen von den Ablagerungen durch Ausbrüche war ein Gebiet von ca. 10.000 km Ausmaß.
Über die Jahrhunderte verdichteten sich die Ablagerungen und die durch unregelmäßige Ausbrüche entstandenen Schichten vulkanischer Tuffe zu einem relativ festen Gestein.
Das Gestein wird bis heute außerordentlich schnell abgetragen.
Während einem meiner Tükeiaufenthalte habe ich in Kappadokien einmal 5 Tage verbracht. Mit Dolmbussen und vor allem zu Fuss, habe ich damals dieses sehr vielfältige Gebiet erkundet.
Photo link:
Die bizzarsten natürlich entstanden Formen gibt es zu bestaunen, aber auch ganze Kirchen und Häuser mit Gangsystemen die von Menschen aus dem weichen Gestein geschnitzt wurden.

This is a World Heritage site. In Byzantine times (when this was a Christian area, between the 4^th and 14^th centuries), holy men and women carved incredible churches, chapels, and monasteries from the strange rock formations in this valley.
The entire Cappadocia area has strange rock formations like this, caused by millenia of water and wind erosion. It’s described in the guide book I had as lunar and that’s pretty apt. Giant cones ascend into the sky, sandy cliffs, layered plateaux: it’s the spectular work of the elements.
But walking around the Goreme open-​air museum is overworldly. The scultping forces of nature did some of their most impressive work here, and humans decided to make it a special place with their subterranean buildings. Some of those remaining are a thousand years old.
Walk around on your own or join a guided tour. Marvel at how well some of the underground painted murals have survived the centuries (or subsequent attempts at defacement).

TUFSTEINHÖHLEN WELTKULTURERBE: es sind höhlen da die wirklich nirgendwo in der welt sind der weg lohnt sich