Diego Delso · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source & license
Ortahisar Castle & Rock Dwellings
Ortahisar Castle is the tuff cone that spikes above the bazaar and the rock dwellings, and the carved houses at its foot are part of the same reading.
The UNESCO protection text says physical growth at Göreme, Ortahisar, Çavuşin, Ürgüp and Mustafapaşa is to be tightly controlled, and that conservation-plan studies for Ortahisar and Uçhisar are in place. The tower and the rock houses wrapped around it show a vertical neighborhood, distinct from the horizontal valley floors of Cappadocia.
Why visit
Stop in Ortahisar to see, from the bazaar ridge, how the castle cone and the rock houses form one architectural mass.
If the summit stair at Ortahisar is closed, do not insist; the clearest view of the cone is from the rock-house lanes at its foot.
