Ani

Ani spreads its ruined splendour across a grass steppe above the Akhurian river gorge at Turkey's far eastern edge - a medieval metropolis that served as capital of the Bagratid Armenian kingdom from 961 to 1045, grew rich on a branch of the Silk Road, and was celebrated as the 'city of 1,001 churches'. Perhaps 100,000 people lived here at its height; invasions and a 1319 earthquake slowly emptied it, and what remains is one of the world's great abandoned cities - the fractured cathedral, the round Church of the Redeemer sliced in half, the frescoed church of St Gregory of Tigran Honents on the gorge lip, a mosque's minaret, and double walls running the plateau's neck. UNESCO inscribed the site in 2016, and its emptiness under the enormous sky is the point: an entire city, and the wind.

What you actually see

• The cathedral - the great domed shell completed around 1001 by the architect Trdat.
• St Gregory of Tigran Honents - the frescoed church above the gorge.
• The Church of the Redeemer - the half-standing rotunda, braced and defiant.
• The city walls - the double line of red-stone towers across the plateau.

When to go

May to June and September for green steppe and bearable temperatures; July and August bake and winter buries the plateau in snow. Late afternoon light turns the stone red-gold.

Honest expectations

Ani is 45 km from Kars with no practical public transport - hire a taxi for a half day or join a tour. The site is huge, shadeless and windswept: water, sun cover and two to three hours of walking are the minimum. Facilities are basic.

Nearby

Kars and its stone architecture, with the Sarikamis forests to the southwest.