Zelve Open Air Museum

15-20 mins from Goreme town center. Zelva Open Air Museum gives you an insight to how life was 1000+ years ago. Entrance fee is 25TKL and is good for same day visit to the Pasabag/Fairy Chimneys as well. You are free to explore at your own pace. We spent around two hours here, exploring caves, churches, mosque, dovecotes, etc. There are a number of hills and steps to climb, so wear good hiking shoes. The whole route is around 1km but it is a pleasant hike. Suggest going early morning. If you are driving up, parking is 5TKL and using the WC will cost you 2TKL. If you are in Goreme and short of time, apart from Balloon rides, Zelva should be on top of your list.

- Zelve open air museum is northeast from Goreme, it is the first major site you encounter if coming with your car from Kayseri. - Zelve is pretty much similar with Goreme open air museum, the difference is that Zelve was primary a place of living of Orthodox Cappadocians, so you wont see here many Churches like in Goreme open air museum, rather cave houses which is also very interesting, - if this is your first site you visit DO BUY the "Museum Cappadocia pass" here - it includes 8 major sites, saves you around 40% of separate entrance fees and enables you to skip the ticket lines - you go directly to the turnstiles, - as all sites in Cappadocia this also features uneven terrain, steps, narrow entrances to cave dwellings often with reduced height, - the site is bigger than Goreme open air, there are 3 routes you can discover which are marked with their length, - very close from Zelve, 5 min drive is Pasabag - the place of Fairy Chimneys (so, it is NOT here like some reviewers say and you need a separate ticket for it, which is included if you buy the Museum pass)

A great open air museum to explore, you can easily spend an hour or more exploring the 3 valleys, all depending on speed of walking and your explorer spirit. It has various stairs going up and down. It costed 25L entrance with the entry to the Pasabag valley where the fairy chimneys are. Car park was 5L. It was definitely worth the views.

Lots of small caves, they are all pretty similar. Museum can be viewed in less than 2 hours depending on how fast you can walk. You'll need to climb many hills and stair

One of the definitely must be visited open air museums in Nevşehir,, you'll be amazed by the history out there and yoll be more fascinated discovering how people used to live and what humans thta time wonderfully made ???

Incredible, mandatory visit if you are in Goreme, taxi from village may cost you something between 40-50 liras but for around 120 you can arrange with your driver to wait for you while you visit. Entrance cost around 25 liras per person and allow you entrance to zelec

Very interesting to see all of the carved buildings. There are different paths you can take but none of them are too long, it can be done in about an hour or less. Not as much as Goreme museum but a bit more variety in the buildings here.

Absolutely beautiful place. The scenery is even more spectacular than Goreme open air museum. Looks like the cave monasteries are churches may be older too. They're certainly simpler. But frustratingly almost everywhere is closed. They say it's because of falling rocks but I don't believe it in most parts. I think it's because the museum officials like saying no as much as possible because it makes them feel important. For example, the main church only has red ochre painting in, no photosensitive plant-based pigments, and it's already open to daylight, so it's really impossible that old pre-LED camera flashes could cumulatively do any damage, but they just put the same rule of no photos everywhere interesting so that you have to buy their postcards, but there aren't even postcards of that church in the museum shop. There's so much money in the local tourism economy but they don't appear to even try to do basic conservation, it's easier to just close everything.