The first thing we visited in the morning was the Goreme Open Air Museum, which is a collection of ancient cave dwellings just outside the main town (2 km, and a beautiful walk!) It is best to get there early in the morning, before the tour buses. A lot of these caves are very small, and so only a limited number of people are allowed in at a time. Inside the caves are a lot of churches, as well as other rooms. The churches have some beautiful frescoes. It is a good introduction to the fairy chimneys and churches of the area. Tour guides will give you detailed information of what is pictured in the frescoes, but we were more interested in just exploring the rooms ourselves at our own pace.

You can pay extra money to see the Karanlik Kilise (Dark Church), which is a cave church with exquisitely preserved frescoes, and worth the admission fee. The paintings are mostly biblical, and might be tough to understand without a guide, but there are enough around that you should be able to just listen in on one.

There is a cafeteria at the entrance to the museum (of course). The site itself doesn’t take that long to walk around, but give yourself some time to explore everything. A few hours should be enough.