AT A GLANCE
Why go?
Belisırma Valley Access is the village-side gate to the Ihlara Valley, the green river canyon that is one of Cappadocia's most loved natural and historical sights. Here the road crosses the Melendiz Stream and opens onto a large parking area fringed by riverside restaurants, rock-cut churches on the cliffs above, and the gentle trail that runs between the canyon's access points. For most walkers it is either the finish line of the valley's famous first section or a calm starting point, with a long, shady lunch right by the water.↗↗↗
What makes it special is the contrast: after the dry, steppe-like plateau of central Anatolia, the Ihlara Valley drops up to around two hundred metres into a lush, poplar-lined gorge carved by the stream through volcanic rock from the Hasan Dağı eruptions. Belisırma sits on that canyon floor, so the access point is really a threshold into a hidden, cooler, greener world that Byzantine monks once filled with chapels.↗↗