Zelve Monastery

The Zelve Valley, now known as the Zelve Open Air Museum, is among the earliest-settled and last-abandoned monastic valleys in Cappadocia. 

Its churches are not as many or as impressive as those at the more famous Goreme Open Air Museum but Zelve has its own attractions: the topography is even more dramatic, with crags and pinnacles and steep valleys, and there's more freedom to climb around and look at all the caves, nooks and crannies.

The best thing that Zelve offers that Goreme does not is the valleys; three valleys, of which two are connected by a tunnel, of abandoned homes and churches converge. Unlike Goreme, contained in a relatively small area, Zelve is a meandering 1,5 kilometres of sightseeing. It was a monastic retreat from the 9th to the 13th century where Christians moved during the Persian and Arab invasions, and although Zelve doesn't have as many impressive painted churches as the Goreme Open-Air Museum, its sinewy valley walls with rock antennae that are wonderfully picturesque places for poking around.