Turkey
Cennet & Cehennem
Twin sinkholes side by side: one a fern-filled paradise, one an abyss that held a monster.
Two holes in the earth sit side by side, utterly different: one is carpeted in ferns and bird calls, a stone staircase winding down to a ruined chapel hidden at the bottom. The other drops straight into darkness, too sheer to enter, its floor lost in permanent shadow. They are named Heaven and Hell, and one look from the edge tells you why.
Cennet, Heaven, opens 250 by 110 metres across and averages 70 metres deep, its floor thick with subtropical green and reached by a long stone stair. In a cave at its base stand the ruins of a 5th-century monastery dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Cehennem, Hell, a few minutes away, is 128 metres deep with sheer walls no path descends, and Greek myth held that Zeus imprisoned the fire-breathing monster Typhon here before banishing him beneath Mount Etna. The sinkholes lie near Silifke in Mersin province, in a karst landscape riddled with part-documented caves.
Solo
The descent into Cennet feels like entering a lost world: the air cools, the light changes, and the chapel at the bottom sits in complete silence. A place best absorbed alone.
Couple
The contrast between the two sinkholes creates a natural narrative: descend into paradise together, then stand at the rim of the abyss. It stays with you.
Family
Children who can manage the staircase will remember the chapel at the bottom for years, and the Heaven-and-Hell framing makes the visit instantly graspable.
- Cennet's opening spans 250 by 110 metres and drops an average of 70 metres to a floor of subtropical green.
- Cehennem is 128 metres deep and too sheer to descend, its floor invisible in shadow.
- The ruins of a 5th-century monastery dedicated to the Virgin Mary stand in a cave at Cennet's base.
- Greek myth held that Zeus imprisoned the monster Typhon in Cehennem.
Kerebiç, semolina shells shaped like içli köfte round pistachio or walnut, eaten in Ramadan.
Sıkma, thin griddle bread buttered and rolled round potato or cheese, hot with tea.
Marakele National Park
South Africa
A mountain road climbs towards a cliff colony of Cape vultures above savanna.
Hljóðaklettar
Iceland
The 'Echo Rocks' — a surreal labyrinth of basalt columns twisted into honeycomb and acoustic spirals.
Bryce Canyon
United States
An amphitheatre of orange hoodoos so dense it looks like a forest made of stone.
San Gerardo de Dota
Costa Rica
A bird the Maya held sacred flashes emerald through one cold valley's mist.
Dilek Peninsula
Turkey
Wild horses drink from Aegean coves in a national park where pine forest meets the sea.
Mardin
Turkey
Honey-coloured stone houses cascade down a hill overlooking the flat Mesopotamian plain stretching to Syria.
Hattuşa
Turkey
Crumbling walls and lion gates of a 3,300-year-old Hittite capital sprawling across a windswept plateau.
Edirne
Turkey
A wrestling festival running since 1362, and Sinan's masterpiece dome rising over the same town.