2 Best Sights in Göreme, Cappadocia and Central Turkey

The open-air museum is a UNESCO World Heritage Site thanks to its spectacular landscape and amazing collection of cave churches decorated with elaborate Byzantine frescoes that were once part of a monastic complex. Within the museum is the 11th-century Elmalı Kilise (Church with the Apple), which has wonderfully preserved frescoes of biblical scenes and portraits of saints. The Karanlık Church (Dark Church) was extensively restored by UNESCO, and vividly colorful scenes, dominated by deep blues, decorate the walls and domed ceiling; the painting of Christ Pantocrator on the dome is particularly impressive (entrance to the church is an extra 30 TL). In the nearby kitchen/refectory, a huge dining table that could seat 50 is carved from the rock, and it's easy to imagine priests and members of the early Christian community here packing in for meals. The museum covers a large area with dozens of caves, nooks, and crannies to explore, almost all of them easily reachable on paved paths.

Although the prizes at Göreme are the fresco-decorated churches, the outdoor museum at Zelve provides a fascinating look at how people lived in fairy-chimney communities. Zelve was a center of Christian monastic life from the 9th through 13th century, and the town was inhabited until the early 1950s, when erosion and cracking caused slabs of rock to fall, forcing villagers to move out. The site is only about 2,145 feet long, but there's plenty to explore. The valley is made up of several uneven, naturally carved rows of fairy chimneys. These—and just about every spare rock face—shelter hundreds of dwellings that vary in size. Some are just simple cavelike openings, and others are multistory houses with rooms on several floors linked by stairs carved deep inside the rocks. There's also a rock-cut mosque and several small churches. Certain structures have collapsed, leaving giant pieces of carved ceiling upside down on the ground. You can probably see the whole place in a little over an hour but could easily linger longer.