The old village of Çavuşin clings to a single dramatic cliff face — tier upon tier of carved-out rooms, doorways, and ladders cut directly into the volcanic tuff. Until the 1960s, this was a lived-in village; then a series of rockfalls forced an evacuation, and the inhabitants were moved to new houses on the flatter ground opposite.
Today you can scramble up through the abandoned dwellings (with care — some sections are unstable) and visit the early Christian church at the top, dedicated to John the Baptist. The view back across the valley is one of the best panoramas in Cappadocia, and the silence in the empty rooms is striking.