Cappadocia - Underground City

After the balloon ride, an hour later we left for our group day tour around the caves, fairy chimneys and underground cities. It is quite a distance between each ( I mean 15mins etc – you cant walk it). We started off with the main underground city, - there are around 5). These were cities dug under the ground – a long way under- by Christians who were needing a hiding place when the muslims in Constantinople (Istanbul) routinely decided to come and round up the infidel! What a feat it mustve been. There were long tunnels with steps going down, down, down, - the tunnels were very narrow –room for one person- and low – I was the only one who didn’t have to duck except for one point! Certainly the place was not for those with a fear of confined spaces! However, give these early people credit. They devised wells for water, air conditioning ducts that let air in, fridges (holes with stone doors) and rooms for sleeping. We are talking about kilometres of tunnels from one city to another. My thought was how did they get the dirt out while they were tunnelling? Presently there are no support beams of any description, and were told there have been no cave ins. Maybe these coal mining companies need to come and get some ideas! Going the steps was easy, (electric lighting with cable attached to the walls) but going back up you had to send a runner up to the next level and call down as it was definitely only a one-way system on the stairs! Very exhausting getting to the top. The cave cities were also impressive – people still live in houses with rooms dug into the hills, and so were the fairy chimneys. These also use to have people living in them (they look like a lot of phallic symbols of diff. sizes and shapes!) both would have been freezing in winter tho, although our guide said they were cool in summer.