Zoë Sheng

Chinese-Canadian - 23-Jan-22 -

Don't waste your time.

I know when somebody says that and you see it on our map here as tentative you'll be like "oh I'll go myself to confirm it isn't any good", because that's what I would do too. However, before you do, you should consider that it has already been rejected as world heritage site so if you are "staying ahead of the committee" with tentative sites then this won't be one of them, it's extremely unlikely to be a world heritage site.

So it's location is odd, north of Antalya surrounded by farms, the road doesn't look like it's going anywhere like a tourist site and the potholes aren't fun, yet it's signposted and they do have proper parking and facilities when you arrive. It's also dead cheap so that's not exactly the issue either, but when you start your visit you need to hike up 10 minutes of stairs. Consider this for your visit, especially if you were at nearby Termessos the same day and you are fit enough for both in a row.

The caves are special because evidence was found that there was continued life (or on/off might be me accurate) for 25,000 years. That surely sounds important. BUT, there is absolutely nothing here to shoe you that. It's like Peking Man without the museum. Empty caves, bats, puddles, not even cave art. There are two chambers, with the lower one nice and warm to show how life is like in a cave and probably the only interesting thing I can note about the site. I can't believe this place has more visitors than Perge in the little time I spent there, cutting my losses and returning to the car quickly.