You step out of a leather-upholstered vehicle into a horizon of honey-colored rock, the air still cool from the night. In the distance, clusters of chimney-shaped spires rise like a small city of stone; a guide points out the hand-carved openings and frescoed naves that made this plateau a refuge for early Christians. Over the next four hours you move between the region's most elemental scenes — the carved cave churches of the Göreme Open Air Museum, the capped pinnacles of Paşabağ, the playful silhouettes of Devrent Valley, and finally the laddered chambers of Kaymakli Underground City — with a driver who knows the shortcuts and a guide who reads the rock as easily as a map.