Also in Nevşehir, through the Deviant valley (also known as the Valley of the Fairy Chimneys) one finds the Zelve Open Air Museum.
Zelve is a Byzantine-era monastery that was carved into the rock, and was one of the last abandoned monastic settlements in Cappadocia. Inhabited until 1952, when people were finally forced to evacuate the sandstone caves, when the risk of erosion became too dangerous.
In pre-iconoclastic times, Christians moved to Zelve to hide during the Persian and Arab invasions.
Today it is a truly beautiful site to wander and contemplate the lives of those that made this otherworldly dwelling.