This magnificent region in central Anatolia is renowned for its rugged volcanic landscape and its rock churches and troglodytic villages, the remains of its occupation by the Christians.

Cappadocia, along with Istanbul and the Mediterranean coast, is the most visited region of Turkey. And quite rightly insofar as its unique landscape goes hand in hand with a deep-rooted cultural identity. This great upland in central Anatolia, the heart of which lies between the cities of Kayseri and Aksaray, is world renowned for its volcanic landscape. Rocky extrusions, ‘fairy-chimney’ rock formations and eroded pillars, interspersed by deep gorges and canyons, characterise this wild and spectacular territory, symbolised by Göreme National Park and its amphitheatre set in a lunar landscape. Throughout Cappadocia, water, wind and ice have sculpted this jagged landscape. And the light of dawn and dusk confers on it a truly magical quality. It would be worth visiting Cappadocia for this landscape alone and yet the area also offers the remains of ancient Christian occupation. These believers, after settling there in the 6th century, built rock churches and several troglodytic villages, as well as underground cities as a refuge from their enemies. More than 3 000 churches, most of which are decorated with magnificent frescoes, now form part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Göreme Valley sanctuaries, unique evidence of this Byzantine Art, are truly outstanding. Troglodytic dwellings can be visited in the villages of Ushisar, Ortahisar and in the very heart of the old town of Nevsehir, while the most typical buried cities are to be found in Kaymakli and Derinkuyu. It is hard to imagine nowadays how hundreds of people could once live eight storeys below the volcanic tuff...