Goreme Open Air Museum

This is the nearest open air museum to Goreme town centre

There are a couple options to visit the museum but the most logical option is to get a museum card which you can ask as “Muzekart” at th entrance.

If you are interested, the museum card options are like this, i do not know if it is available for the non-turkish people to buy but here it is:

*Full Museum Card: 185 tl – Passes in every museum in Turkey, you can visit every museum as much as you want, the card is valid for a year

*Museum card+: 50 tl – It is valid in every museum in turkey except 4. One of these 4 is the Dark Church located in Goreme Open Air Museum. You need to pay extra 10 tl if you don’t have full museum card to get in. Museum card+ is valid for a year.

*Museum card: 40 tl – Valid in every museum in turkey for a year but you can only visit 2 times each museum.

*Museum card student: 20 tl – It has same functionality with museum card+ but in museum card+ you will get extra discount in opera house which you cannot get with this one. Valid for a year

*Museum card Cappadocia: 45 tl – This card has unlimited access to all museum located in Cappadocia area but it is valid for only 3 days. I think this is the most logical option for tourist that will visit only cappadocia.

*Visiting without museum card: 30 tl

*Prices are noted in May 2017

When you first get in to museum, you cannot predict how big it is because the biggest area is located in the backside of the entrance path. You are gonna use mostly stairs to walk around inside.

When the time we visited here, there were some closed structures, i think they are closed by security reasons, you can see the rocks seems like they are gonna collapse, so this may be the reason

I recommend you to rent audio guides for 15 tl when you first get in to museum. Most structure and the things inside them have audio numbers which you can type in audio guide and listen the history of it, which is quite helpful if you don’t belong to tourist guide. I also recommend you to use your own headphones for this device because the ones they give is probably gonna be old or broken. You can use your standart mobile headphones for it. We used one device for two people so you can do the same.

The structures in the museum are mostly churchs, dining rooms etc. You can see some structures are damaged by people, it is very sad to see. I wonder how did they damage the things while even taking the phogoraph are forbidden.

Some parts in the museum are like this:
Kızlar ve Erkekler Manastırı(Men and Women Monastery), Aziz Basileus Kilisesi(St Basileus Chapel), Elmalı Kilise(Apple Church), Aziz Barbara Kilisesi(St Barbara Church), Yılanlı Kilise(Snake Church), Karanlık Kilise(Dark Church), Çarıklı Kilise(Sandals Church),Tokalı Kilise(Buckle Church).

If you walk through the left side when you first come in, you are gonna see the Apple Church at last. You can see a small exist near it to the entrance of the museum.

Also there are some structures at the valley near to Apple Church, that area seems quite nice, i hope some day they will open that buildings to visit too.

Also as i have mentioned about the Dark Church at the beginning, they said experts worked in this place for 9 years. All paintings looks new, so i guess that is why they charge for extra 10 tl if you dont have full museum card. But Dark Church looks very similar to Apple Church so if you don’t wanna pay extra 10 tl you won’t miss so much

Location of the mouseum on Google Maps: