Cappadocia

Cappadocia looks like nowhere else in Turkey. Millions of years ago, volcanoes buried this part of central Anatolia under thick layers of ash that hardened into a soft rock called tuff. Wind and rain have been carving it ever since, into cones, ridges and the tall capped pillars locals call peri bacaları, fairy chimneys. People carved it too: dovecotes, houses, churches, whole cities underground.

Most visitors come for one picture, a sky full of balloons at sunrise, and they get it if the wind allows. What stays with people is often quieter: walking alone through Rose Valley in the late afternoon, or finding a painted chapel at the end of a dusty path. Our Cappadocia travel guide covers the practical side.

Two airports serve the region: Kapadokya (NAV), the closer one, and Kayseri (ASR), which has more flights. Shuttle buses run from both to the villages. Overnight buses arrive at Nevşehir or Göreme from Istanbul, Denizli and the coast. Our getting there guide covers every route.

Sleeping in a room cut into the rock is half the reason people come, and the village you pick changes the trip. Göreme is central and busy, Uçhisar is calmer with long views, Ürgüp has the best choice of restaurants. We compare them, and explain what "cave room" can mean, in our cave hotels guide.

The balloons, the valleys and the rock churches are the core of any visit. Start with our things to do list, then read the full guides to the balloon flights, the underground cities and the Göreme Open Air Museum.

The dish every restaurant pushes is testi kebabı, a meat and vegetable stew sealed in a clay pot and cracked open at the table. It's partly theatre, but the stew is tasty. Look out too for mantı, tiny dumplings under yoghurt and chilli butter, and Kayseri's pastırma, a spiced cured beef. Local wines are made from grapes like Emir, a crisp white.

Christian monks and villagers settled here from around the 4th century and spent the next thousand years cutting churches into the rock, many painted with frescoes that survive. Greek-speaking Christians and Turkish Muslims shared these villages until the population exchange of 1923, and in places like Mustafapaşa you still see Greek inscriptions carved over the doors of stone mansions.