Cappadocia: the world’s most famous troglodytes

One of the most famous landscapes in the world, Cappadocia (pronounced like the Turkish spelling, Kapadokya) is a huge, arid Dr. Seuss-meets-bad-acid-trip region of fairy chimneys, knife-sharp gullies and scalloped hillsides. The result of millennia of rain and wind eroding what was once a lava-covered plain, Cappadocia is world-renowned not only for its mind-boggling geography, but also for its human inhabitants: generations have taken advantage of the soft tuff by making their homes in caves dug into the hillsides.

Cappadocia was inhabited by early Christian settlers, who found the often hidden and inaccessible caves the perfect refuge from persecution. They left a legacy of cave dwellings carved out of the rocks, frescoed, rock-hewn churches and chapels hidden away in the many valleys, as well as sometimes entire complex subterranean cities.

Today the mushroom shaped, pinnacled, capped and conic shaped formations and unique history are a major tourist draw, and Göreme National Park and the formations themselves have been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1985. Fewer and fewer of the cave dwellings are inhabited, but many have been converted to restaurants and hotels, where anyone can get a taste of life underground.