Ihlara Valley stays invisible until you reach its edge: a 14-kilometre canyon, 100 to 120 metres deep, cut into flat and treeless steppe. The Melendiz River carved it out of the soft volcanic tuff laid down by Hasan Dağı, and that softness turned the gorge into a city. From roughly the seventh century, Byzantine monks and villagers hollowed the walls into chapels, monasteries and homes; 105 churches have been counted along the valley, and about fourteen can be entered today. Their frescoes have held their colour in the dry rock for a thousand years, and the style changes as you walk downstream. The last church painted here, Kırkdamaltı, was finished around 1290 by a Christian couple who dated their gift by the reign of a Seljuk sultan as well as a Byzantine emperor.
Getting in from Ihlara village means walking down close to four hundred steps, and the world changes as you descend. The steppe above bakes; the canyon floor stays cool, shaded by poplars and willows, with the Melendiz running loud beside the path the whole way. Nothing but grass grows on the plateau, while gardens and orchards crowd the valley bottom. Most walkers take the 3.5-kilometre stretch down to Belisırma, where wooden platforms are built out over the stream and grilled trout arrives with the water running under your feet. The full 14 kilometres ends at Selime, beneath one of the largest rock-cut monastic complexes in Cappadocia — a warren of halls, tunnels and a cave cathedral carved into the cliff. The valley is protected and ticketed today, its main churches signposted along the trail, and in late October and November the poplars turn: the canyon floor becomes a gold ribbon lying inside brown steppe.