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Ever considered spending a few decades living on top of a pillar? Well that is one of the surreal options on offer in Cappadocia, central Turkey. This is what the region’s first ever visitors, the ascetically extreme Stylites, got up to, and they certainly must have had fantastic views from the lofty columns that mushroom out of the valleys. Today’s more sybaritically inclined travellers can follow a more stylish route by opting for Cappadocia’s other speciality: upmarket caves. The vast network of caves that pockmark the soft, volcanic rock were, for hundreds of years, homes, chapels and refuges for early Christians escaping persecution. This extraordinary heritage is now the economic saviour of a remote part of Turkey that would otherwise be struggling, although for the self-denying Stylites, or so-called “pillar saints”, understated masochism was in fact their game; one hermit allegedly did not lie down for years while another drank just one drop of oil a day.

Not being of this ilk, I am going there to revel in the landscapes and to indulge a vague penchant for troglodyte living that I tested only once before in Andalucia. There it was scorching mid-summer; here in Cappadocia it is late autumn with plummeting temperatures. Yet cave-dwelling is flourishing like never before and bringing new heights of sophistication. Joining the simple beds and Turkish rugs that first furnished the womb-like hotels three decades ago are central heating, marble bathrooms, power showers, cool background jazz, elegant antiques, gourmet breakfasts, exquisitely carved details and even wi-fi.

Getting to this wonderland turns out to be straightforward. From Istanbul, a one-hour flight east lands in Kayseri, a city memorable for its high density of petrol stations. Luckily the landscape soon evolves into the lunar fantasia that draws over half a million visitors annually. Most gravitate to Goreme, the original, stunningly sited “cave-town” packed with reasonably-priced facilities and an overload of souvenir-shops. Goreme forms a kind of golden triangle with its neighbour, the less spoilt, more upmarket Ucisar, perched on a natural rock citadel, and with Urgup, where wide-ranging offerings include a backgammon café and very palatable local wine. Further south lies an outsider, the former Greek village of Mustafapasa where beautiful, albeit dilapidated Greek mansions and a couple of distinctive hotels have their own particular charm.

However comfortable Cappadocia’s hotels may be, they are insignificant compared with the visual assault of the surroundings, the result of one of our planet’s greatest volcanic upheavals some 65 million years ago. The snowcapped culprit, Mt Erciyes, looms to the east while, in between, pink, umber and biscuit-coloured tufa (a porous rock similar to pumice) takes the form of pinnacles, ripples, corkscrews, cones, honeycomb, triffids, toadstools, phalli or anything else your imagination fires up. More revealing still are the superlative Byzantine frescoes hidden inside. Blanketing the arches, vaults, domes and walls of 1000-year old chapels and monasteries hacked out of the rock, these images are a forceful reminder of the resistance of early Christian belief against successive attacks by Romans, Persians and Arabs. With the Ottoman Empire in full swing in the 17th – 18th centuries, Christianity was on the wane and the caves were gradually abandoned, their sumptuous art-galleries meeting a prosaic end as store-houses for local farmers.

As the main cluster of monasteries in Goreme bears the stamp of UNESCO World Heritage approval, it magnetises the tour-groups. Yet it is a revelation. Inside a network of small rock-cut churches, only accessible by ladder or carved steps, is a feast of magnificent and largely unrestored Byzantine murals. Later, my guide takes me to the less visited valley of Soganli (also known for hundreds of pigeon-cots), where frescoes are lesser in quality but only cows ruminate between the poplars outside. And that is just above ground. For Cappadocia’s other outstanding feature lies underground. Refuges dating from the 1st- 11th centuries, laboriously burrowed out of the soft tufa, reveal ventilation shafts, wells, spherical rooms, ground ovens; again it is both ingenious and sophisticated. While I am bent double creeping through a tunnel at Kaymakli, I cannot help thinking of Bin Laden holed up in his mountain caves. It cannot be that different.

Despite the fantastic landscapes made for walking, tourist numbers dwindle during the off-season. This means that on a three-hour walk through the spectacular Red and Rose Valleys, my guide and a tea-seller who pops out of a Byzantine cave are the only other humans. Similarly, I am often the only foreigner in a buzzy restaurant, but this is Cappadocia and you are never alone. The locals love to chat, above all shopkeepers over a glass of tea as they subtly talk up the value of a dusty samovar or the uniqueness of a chunky necklace. As all the shops stay open till late in the evening, leisurely, post-prandial bartering is only too easy. I find the wily carpet-salesmen are best avoided unless you know your kilims from your double-knots but, pleasantly replete after a sizzling clay-pot of lamb, I make sure that necklace finds its rightful place – my neck. Then, strolling back to my cave-hotel under a star-studded sky, I revel in one of the great joys of the “off” season: the cool night air perfumed by wood-burning stoves.

Several hours later as the horizon slowly brightens, I am sleepily preparing for yet another high, a ballooning trip to swoop through the valleys, rise above indented cliffs and sail over eroded outcrops. There are only a handful of days in the year when strong winds make it too dangerous but, sadly, I hit the jackpot. Despite a transparent, rose-tinted dawn, Kaili and Lars, the highly professional Anglo-Swedish balloon-meisters, declare that it is not to be.

Disappointing though this is, the next day, as I am driven back to Kayseri, my mind is filled with the experience of the night before: a mesmerising performance of whirling dervishes in the fabulous setting of a 13th century caravanserai. Then, to top it all, nature produces a magical trumpcard. A gentle dusting of snow starts to completely transform this sci-fi landscape, making me thankful, yet again, not to be a Stylite.

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