The Unusual Landscapes of Cappadocia, Turkey

Cappadocia, located in the central region of Turkey, is also known as "the land of the beautiful horses". Although I only saw a grand total of 2 mediocre horses here, it didn't matter as what I did get to see literally blew me away.


Above: View from the roof terrace of my cave hotel in Göreme.

After the early morning hot air balloon flight where we got a preview of Cappadocia's unusual natural landscape from above, we continued exploring on ground, admiring the strange rock formations up close.

Our journey included a 4km hike and a mini van was arranged as well to take us between some of the locations that were further apart. Overall we were able to cover all of what made Cappadocia a UNESCO World Heritage site.




We started off at Devrent Valley, also known as the Imagination Valley as it consists of interesting rocks shaped like human beings, animals, or whatever your imagination comes up with.







I particularly love the peculiar 'Fairy Chimneys' found at Pasabagi and Urgup. These are tall, cone shaped rock formations each topped with caps! How cute is that?!






At Uchisar, we saw huge rocks with little niches hollowed out from it, forming multi-level tiny rooms. Each room is apparently inter-connected by passages, tunnels and stairs.









More rock-cut dwellings at Cavusin.





Finally, a view of the town of Orthahisar from a distance. The most prominent feature of the town is undoubtedly its 90m high rock 'Castle', blanketed by numerous stone houses.