Caphis picked up his paddle and the coracle skimmed across the water toward a bend of the stony shore, where cliffs carved and socketed with empty tombs rose from a broad pale beach.

Shared with Menden and Balve is the Hönnetal, a narrow valley with some beautiful cliffs carved into the same limestone bedrock by the river Hönne.

And soon he began to fashion a dramatic, swooping building of rough-hewn limestone, meant to resemble cliffs carved away, with windows aligned so that at winter and summer solstices, the sun's rays would shoot in like beams to illuminate sacred objects.

Some helicopter tours also include a dramatic landing inside the canyon, so you can get out and marvel at the sheer cliffs carved over the millennia by the erosive powers of nothing more than water.

Visitors can see huge cliffs carved by mighty streams of water, results of the hydraulic mining technique of washing away entire mountains of gravel to wash out the gold.

The screen zoomed in on the area, a rolling flood plain below columned cliffs carved from dark, fissured rock.

In the middle will be what is essentially the museum building of Mr. Cardinal's original design, a structure with undulating walls of rough-hewn limestone, meant to resemble cliffs carved away.

The Hönnetal, a narrow valley with some beautiful cliffs carved into the limestone bedrock by the river Hönne.