South of Turkey's capital Ankara you can find some of the most astonishing landscapes of the planet. Here, in Cappadocia, soft volcanic tuff has been sculpted into fantastic shapes by millennia of erosion: huge pillars and mushrooms, valleys of "folded paper" and tuff cones in which early Christians carved their vibrantly painted churches. A stark contrast is provided by the barren salt flats of Tuz Gülö and the austere capital of the ancient Hittites: Hattusha.
[TURKEY.CENTRAL 26820
'Fairy chimneys in White Valley-4.'
A forest of 'fairy chimneys' catches the early sunlight on a spring morning in the White (Baglidere) Valley, south of the Cappadocian village of Göreme. These huge pillars, called peribacalar in Turkish, are sculptured by erosion from soft volcanic tuff layers. They are topped by a cap of harder more solidified ash (ignimbrite). Photo Mick Palarczyk.
[TURKEY.CENTRAL 26820
'Fairy chimneys in White Valley-4.'
A forest of 'fairy chimneys' catches the early sunlight on a spring morning in the White (Baglidere) Valley, south of the Cappadocian village of Göreme. These huge pillars, called peribacalar in Turkish, are sculptured by erosion from soft volcanic tuff layers. They are topped by a cap of harder more solidified ash (ignimbrite). Photo Mick Palarczyk.
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