Four days in Cappadocia: a town that lives inside the rock it stands on

The path from the edge of town runs along a narrow gorge towards Uçhisar between walls of soft rock riddled with cut niches. The name comes from the dovecotes: farmers carved thousands of pigeon holes into the cliffs and collected the droppings to fertilise the vineyards, which is why the valley floor is still full of grapes and apricots. An hour each way, or one way with a taxi back.

The low hill immediately above the town, ten minutes up a rough track, and the standard place to watch the sun go down over the chimneys. There is a cafe at the top selling tea at a markup nobody minds paying. Come back before dawn tomorrow if the balloons are flying and you are not on one.

Order the testi kebab when you book your table rather than when you sit down; the pot has to go into the oven long before you eat.

Pick-up from your hotel in the dark, an hour or so in the air as the sun comes up over the ridges, and a landing where the crew chase the basket across a field in a pickup truck. Weather calls are made at the launch field, so a cancellation is decided very early and refunded.

A loop path through the churches, chapels and kitchens of a rock-cut monastery that was in use from around the 10th century, with painted interiors that survive because they were cut out of the cliff rather than built on it. Karanlık Kilise, the Dark Church, costs extra and is worth it: it had almost no windows, and the dark kept the colours. Two to three hours, and the trick is to move between the tour groups rather than behind them.

The walk back into town takes twenty five minutes downhill along the road. Anywhere off the main street will do you a plate of mantı, the small lamb dumplings served under yoghurt and hot butter.

A chapel cut into a free-standing fairy chimney a short walk from the town, known as the church of the evil eye, with wall paintings in much rougher condition than the museum's and nobody else looking at them. Ask at the entrance about the key to the Hidden Church nearby.

A monastery church above the Ortahisar road, dark inside and easy to walk past. The custodian keeps a torch to lend out, which you will need to make anything of the frescoes.

A shallow, sandy canyon of pale pink tuff northeast of the town, with vineyards on the floor and rock-cut chapels in the walls, some of them still holding traces of painted crosses. The path is easy going but braids constantly; the general rule is to keep heading downhill and west.

The next valley over, and the redder of the two, which is why the viewpoint above it is where every minibus tour parks at sunset. Walking through the bottom of it instead means you get the colour without the car park.

A village at the foot of a honeycombed cliff, half of it abandoned after the rock face was declared unsafe, with an old church perched at the top of the collapsed section. The lower streets are still lived in and there is somewhere to sit down for a drink at the end of the walk.

A short valley of unusually tall, capped fairy chimneys, some of them tens of metres high, reached in ten minutes from the north edge of town or from a signposted viewpoint on the Avanos road. Go early: the light is better and by mid morning there is nowhere at all to get out of the sun.

A village built around a tall free-standing block of tuff that was hollowed out into a fortress, with stairs and rooms running all the way up and a view across to Erciyes from the top. The lanes below it are full of cold-storage caves; this is where a good deal of Turkey's lemon crop spends the winter.

Shuttles to both Nevşehir and Kayseri pick up from Göreme hotels and want ordering the day before. Allow ninety minutes to Kayseri and about an hour to Nevşehir.