Argos in Cappadocia

Argos is a hotel built into seven old stone mansions in a village in Uçhisar, looking over Pigeon Valley. Rooms and suites, 71 in all, occupy cave chambers or stone-walled sections, some windowless, some opening onto private gardens, terraces or balconies, and sizes run from 20 m² standard rooms to a 160 m² grand suite with its own pool. Furnishings mix local carpets and stone with modern pieces, and several suites keep working fireplaces for the colder months. The heated outdoor pool stays open all year and looks across the whole valley. It is a quiet spot for a swim. Dining runs through two restaurants, Nahita and Seki, plus a wine cellar, with ingredients drawn from a 60 km radius and herbs cut from the hotel's own garden. Beyond the rooms, Argos keeps a set of historic spaces once used for oil pressing and worship: the Bezirhane, a 137 m² hall with a 2,000-year history as monastery and caravanserai, a 59 m² chapel among the world's oldest, and a glass-floored museum hall showing the old mill workings. Outdoors, the grass plateau called Monks and the 390 m² garden known as Vadi host weddings, concerts and other gatherings under open sky, with the region's rock formations as backdrop. You can hear very little beyond wind and the odd hot air balloon burner at dawn.