Göreme Open Air Museum, Turkey

The open air museum a UNESCO site since 1984 is the crown jewel of the Cappadocia area. This area boasts over 600 churchs mostly dating from 11th and 12th century carved into the rock caves all over the region.

But to back up a little, thousands of years ago, nearby Mount Erciyes volcano erupted. This volcanoes is in Kayseri 45 minutes from Goreme. Ash and lava fell across the landscape and hardened to form tuff rock. Over centuries wind and rain erosion slowly moulded "fairy chimneys" that we see today.

It didn’t take centuries for locals to realise they could carve into rocks and soon turned them into houses and churches. They had been doing it since the 3rd century Roman times, although most of the church's and frescos date from the 12th century. During the Ottoman times these church's were converted to the pigeon homes and unfortunately some of the frescos were destroyed. Today this is the main tourism destination of Cappadocia.

One really cool feature of the caves here are many of them had long dining tables carved out of the rock. It can be seen in some of the pictures. They carved a 15" or so table out of the rock with benches on either side. They must have had huge families.Read more