Uchisar Castle

Uchisar, located at the highest point of Cappadocia on the Nevsehir–Goreme road, is just 5km from Goreme. The magnificent view from the top of Uchisar Castle offers a stunning view of the surrounding areas, with Mount Erciyes visible in the distance.

Many rooms are hollowed into the rock and connected by stairs, tunnels, and passages. Millstone doors are located at the doors of the rooms. These doors can be used to restrict access to these areas. Unfortunately, not all rooms can be reached due to erosion at the multi-leveled castle. The majority of rooms on the north side are used today as pigeon homes (dovecuts). These cave pigeon homes were used by farmers to collect the droppings from pigeons, which are a great natural fertilizer for their orchards.

Other pigeon homes can be found in Pigeon Valley (Guvercinlik Vasi in Turkish), which connects Uchisar and Goreme. To attract birds and their valuable droppings, most of these cave dwellings were painted white.

The three fairy chimneys located to the east, north and west of Uchisar were excavated and used during the Roman period as graves. These rock-cut tombs have entrances that face west. The bodies were then laid on klines or stone slabs.

Numerous rock-cut churches were discovered both outside and inside the castle. This may be because Goreme, which has many churches and monasteries is close to Uchisar.

Because they were ransacked and eroded, the simple Byzantine tombs that are on the top of this castle aren't very interesting. According to legend, citadel towns like Uchisar and Ortahisar have citadels that protect their citizens. Long defense tunnels extended into the surrounding area from Uchisar to Ortahisar to Urgup (Bashisar). This theory is not supported by the fact that the tunnels have fallen in some places. However, it is popular because of the vast distances they cover.