People have carved communities
into these formations for thousands of years.
While many of these evocative caves are abandoned,
many cave settlements have grown into thriving towns,
whose main industry is clearly tourism.
For extra guidance, we're joined by my friend
and fellow tour guide, Lale Surmen Aran.
For years, Lale's led our bus tour groups around Turkey,
and for this itinerary, she's joining us.
Lale: While mainly Muslim today, Anatolia was Christian
for five centuries before Islam even arrived.
Early Christians had to take shelter.
They had to had to hide from the ancient Roman persecutions.
They had to hide from the 7th century Arab invasions.
And the landscape around here provided the perfect hideout.
Rick: It really does.
And to actually see what Lale's talking about,
we're descending into Kaymaklı,
a completely underground city dug out of the rock.
Much of Kaymaklı
was originally dug in Hittite times,
over 1,000 years before Christ.
Later, this underground world provided an almost
ready-made refuge.
Through the centuries,
when invading armies passed through the area,
entire communities lived down here for months at a stretch.
In ancient times, Christians were persecuted
and actually did go, literally, underground.
This is a remarkable example of their determination
to live free and true to their faith.
Imagine, 300 AD, hiding out down here with your family.
In fact, hiding out down here with your entire community.
And people up there hunting you down.
Tourists are free to explore
the networks of streets and plazas.
You'll find kitchens...
cramped living spaces...
massive, roll-away-the-stone doors...
and ingenious ventilation shafts
to bring fresh air to the many
underground levels.
They could have made these tunnels bigger,
but that was part of the plan.
It certainly made any invader vulnerable.
And to conserve oxygen,
candlelight was kept to a minimum.
It must have been a long, dark wait.
But for us, it's back to fresh air and sunshine.
We're on our way again.
As time went on, sprawling communities
still digging caves for homes
inhabited entire valleys like Zelve.
Around the 10th century,
Zelve was one of scores of similar cave communities
here in Cappadocia.
Cleverly, they wrung a livelihood
out of this parched land.
Caves served as ancient condominiums,
with holes dug out as cooking pits.
In addition to living spaces,
they were also equipped with natural pantries,
cubbyholes carved out for storage of food and wine.
Big, animal-powered stone wheels ground grain.
People ingeniously used whatever nature offered them.
Pigeon droppings were collected,
providing valuable fertilizer to assure a good harvest
in the valley below.
The ancient home of the Ephesians
is one of the world's greatest classical sites.
The west coast of what we now call Turkey
was once a cultural heartland
of ancient Greece.
Ephesus blossomed as a Greek city
in about the 4th century BC.
It was later consumed by the expanding Roman empire
and eventually became a major Roman city.
While the site is vast,
only about 15% of this Greco-Roman metropolis
has been excavated.
But as Rome fell, so did Ephesus.
Once a thriving seaport,
the city was sacked by barbarians.
Eventually its busy port silted up and it was abandoned.
1,000 years of silt left it stranded three miles inland
from the Aegean coast.
♫
The library -- the third-largest
of the Roman empire,
is a highlight.
The facade is striking.
Statues of women celebrating the virtues
of learning and wisdom inspired the citizenry.
The city's main street is lined with buildings grand,
even in their ruined state.
This one, known as Hadrian's Temple,
was built in the second century.
Dedicated to Emperor Hadrian,
its decorations are full of symbolism.
To this day, archeologists debate just what it all means.
For extra guidance, we're joined by my friend
Lale Surmen Aran.
For years, Lale has led our bus tour groups around Turkey,
and for this itinerary she's joining us.
Rick: Huge city -- quarter of a million people.
Lale: This was one of the biggest metropolises
of the Roman period.
Now, we're in the downtown and the main street of the city,
but the city expanded beyond this main street on both sides.
Rick: So, way up to the mountain, actually?
Lale: On both directions, way up to the mountains,
and housed 250,000 people.
All the city was plumbed.
Right underneath us there was a huge sewer,
and there were clay pipes at either side of the street
taking fresh water to the baths and the fountains.
Ah, so they had aqueducts coming in and powering the whole city.
Lale: Yes.
See, these were the public toilets
attached to the Roman baths next door.
Everybody sat next to one another.
Rick: So, public toilets were really public.
The terrace houses stretch up from the city's main drag.
These excavations are incredibly complex,
like piecing together an enormous puzzle.
The fragments are so delicate,
the ongoing work is protected under a roof.
The terrace houses give us a particularly intimate look
at Ephesian life 2,000 years ago.
Now, how many families would have lived in this zone?
Lale: Only five.
-Just five? -Five families.
And these were huge houses.
Rick: This must have been the elite of Ephesus.
Lale: Ultra, ultra rich.
Not only for Ephesus,
but among the richest of the world
lived in these houses.
Rick: So, when you walk through here,
can you imagine what it would be like to live at that time?
Lale: Sort of -- it was very luxurious living in these houses.
All houses were arranged around an atrium,
so they had the courtyard with rooms all around,
which were richly decorated with art on two or three floors.
A standard feature of any Roman city
was its theater.
To estimate an ancient city's population,
archeologists multiply the capacity
of its theater by ten.
As this one holds 25,000, they figure the city's population
was a quarter million.
It was here that the apostle Paul planned to give his talk
instructing the Ephesians to stop worshipping man-made gods.
And here in Ephesus, that god was Artemis.
The local craftspeople produced statues of Artemis like this.
It was a big industry --
they exported them far and wide.
When they realized Paul's message
would ruin their businesses, they started a riot.
Imagine this theater filled with thousands of people
all shouting in one angry voice,
"Great is Artemis of the Ephesians."
For his own safety, Paul had to flee,
and he ended up giving his message by letter.
That's why, in the Bible, we've got Paul's letter
to the Ephesians.
In what seems like the middle of nowhere,
we come to a striking white hillside.
This marks the ancient city, spa, and necropolis
of Hierapolis.
In Roman times, the rich and frail
came here to spend their last years, and to die.
We approach today as visitors always have --
walking through the evocative tombs,
then passing under an imposing Roman gate
where a grand boulevard leads you to the mineral springs,
Famous since ancient times
for its curative waters and tranquility.
Today, the ever-popular springs
in the shadow of ancient ruins
fill a pool littered with a dreamy assortment
of ancient Roman columns that sparkle
beneath the crystal-clear water.
A soak here is like bathing in hot champagne.
Below, the wondrous white cliffs of Pamukkale
create a scenic backdrop for bathers.
The water flowing over the rocks
leave a calcium residue that whitens and solidifies,
creating a wonderland of pools and terraces
that, along with the commanding view,
make an unforgettable setting.
♫
Turkey fills the Anatolian Peninsula,
and Anatolia is peppered with remnants of civilizations long gone.
And around here, important sites
are constantly being unearthed.
Aphrodisias is a relatively recent excavation.
The more they dig,
the more many archaeologists believe that Anatolia,
rather than Mesopotamia, further to the east,
is the cradle of our civilization.
While this site goes back much further,
what we see today is ancient Roman --
only about 2,000 years old.
This ornate gateway gives us a sense
of the impressive city's former grandeur.
And judging from its stadium,
this town was really into sports.
This is a proper stadium, one "stadion" long --
that's about two football fields.
Events like athletic contests,
animal fights, and gladiator sports
packed the house.