Byzantine monks cut churches into Göreme's tuff while Arab raiders passed overhead, and villagers still lived in those caves until 1952. This three-day route follows that record: hermit chimneys, a Seljuk han, Ottoman Nevşehir and the quarter emptied in 1924.
Three honeycombed valleys where Christians and Muslims lived side by side until 1952 rockfalls forced evacuation to Yeni Zelve. A rock-cut mosque with stubby minaret, the grape-carved Üzümlü Kilise and a pitch-black connecting tunnel survive.
Three-headed chimneys hollowed into hermit cells by followers of Simeon Stylites from the 5th century onward. Stone stairs climb into St Simeon's chapel, where a cross is carved into the apse and pigeon niches line the shaft above.
Cappadocia's oldest surviving church: a 5th-century basilica gouged into the cliff above abandoned Greek Çavuşin. Its collapsed façade exposes the three-aisled nave, and below sits the 964 church of emperor Nikephoros Phokas with imperial-era frescoes.
The Church of the Cross, cut into Rose Valley's pink cliffs, keeps a Maltese cross carved across its ceiling and 9th-century red-ochre geometry painted during the iconoclast ban on figural images. A caretaker sells tea beside the entry ladder.
Seljuk sultan Izzeddin Keykavus II built this fortified Silk Road inn in 1249. Its honey-coloured portal, small prayer room raised on squinches and vaulted stables sheltered caravans on the Aksaray–Kayseri road; dervish ceremonies still fill the courtyard.
A restored Avanos mansion above the Kızılırmak showing Hittite-to-Ottoman finds, sepia photographs of the town before its Greek families left in 1924, and tableaux of vanished trades. The terrace overlooks the ancient Halys, Turkey's longest river.
Grand vizier Damat İbrahim Paşa, born here in 1662, rebuilt his home village into a city in 1726: mosque, medrese, library, hamam and soup kitchen in Ottoman baroque, finished four years before the Patrona Halil revolt cost him his life.
An 86-metre tuff outcrop fortified in Byzantine times to watch the Kayseri road, its lower chambers later packed with lemons and potatoes kept at a steady 10°C year-round. Iron stairways restored after long closure now reach the summit terrace.
Eight subterranean levels, four of them open, where Byzantine Christians sheltered from Arab raids behind 1.5-tonne rolling millstone doors. Ventilation shafts drop 80 metres past stables, wineries and a church; linking tunnels squeeze to 1.4 metres.
Greek Orthodox until the 1924 population exchange, Sinasos keeps carved-stone mansions with Greek inscriptions above their doors, the 1729 Church of Saints Constantine and Helen on the square, and the Ayios Vasilios chapel on the slope above.
The tuff knoll over Ürgüp holds the türbe of Seljuk sultan Kılıçarslan IV, killed in 1266, beside a tomb tunnelled into the rock in 1268. Downhill on Kayseri Caddesi, the town museum fits Roman glass and Byzantine icons into one hall.
The tallest rock in Cappadocia, riddled with Byzantine tombs, granaries and a defensive shaft system; families lived inside it until the 1960s cleared the crumbling chambers. From the top the Melendiz range and Erciyes' snowcap close the horizon.