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Description

Location: Goreme, Cappadocia, Anatolia, Turkey

A Cave Church

Plucked from a capricious fable and set down upon the stark Anatolian plains, Cappadocia is a geological oddity of honeycombed hills and towering boulders of otherworldly beauty. The fantastical topography is matched by the human history here. People have long utilised the region's soft stone, seeking shelter underground and leaving the countryside scattered with fascinating cavern architecture. Unforgettable lunarscape panoramas and the regions accordion-ridged valleys, shaded in a palette of dusky orange and cream are an epiphany of a landscape – the stuff of psychedelic daydreams

It was a very short visit of only a few days for me. It was barely a perfunctory sampling of this transplantation into what might be an almost primordial realm. But even then, one could almost envisage ancient soothsayers, mystics and sages talk in murmured whispers of the origins of Cappadocia. It could almost start with ….. “In a time before man or beast roamed the earth, The plains of Anatolia lay submerged beneath the seas bereft of form or fish. Maybe the Anatolian plains were heaved up by the surge of earthquakes or maybe the seas just subsided, one can never know. The sands of the sea bed now formed soft porous stone, it was then the mighty volcanoes belched ash and larva in from their ungodly mouths ash became soft igneous pumice stone and the lava hardened in Basalt on top. The anger of the earth subsided and the elements as the implements of the gods, danced and played and sculpted earth, wind and rain and snow and rivers and heat carved and fashioned this this land to as it is now” And I can imagine them speaking in hushed whispers, hidden away in one of the many levels subterranean cities or secret cavern cities hewed into the hills and cliffs.

They say, one must experience Cappadocia at three levels, From The Ground, From The Air and From below the surface. It is challenging to capture the ethereal surrealistic vibe of Cappadocia in a few days in a few images , but as my few days served only top whet my desire to revisit and revisit, I hope these few images in this series may inspire some to visit this enchanting wonderland.

Description

Location: Goreme, Cappadocia, Anatolia, Turkey

A Cave Church

Plucked from a capricious fable and set down upon the stark Anatolian plains, Cappadocia is a geological oddity of honeycombed hills and towering boulders of otherworldly beauty. The fantastical topography is matched by the human history here. People have long utilised the region's soft stone, seeking shelter underground and leaving the countryside scattered with fascinating cavern architecture. Unforgettable lunarscape panoramas and the regions accordion-ridged valleys, shaded in a palette of dusky orange and cream are an epiphany of a landscape – the stuff of psychedelic daydreams

It was a very short visit of only a few days for me. It was barely a perfunctory sampling of this transplantation into what might be an almost primordial realm. But even then, one could almost envisage ancient soothsayers, mystics and sages talk in murmured whispers of the origins of Cappadocia. It could almost start with ….. “In a time before man or beast roamed the earth, The plains of Anatolia lay submerged beneath the seas bereft of form or fish. Maybe the Anatolian plains were heaved up by the surge of earthquakes or maybe the seas just subsided, one can never know. The sands of the sea bed now formed soft porous stone, it was then the mighty volcanoes belched ash and larva in from their ungodly mouths ash became soft igneous pumice stone and the lava hardened in Basalt on top. The anger of the earth subsided and the elements as the implements of the gods, danced and played and sculpted earth, wind and rain and snow and rivers and heat carved and fashioned this this land to as it is now” And I can imagine them speaking in hushed whispers, hidden away in one of the many levels subterranean cities or secret cavern cities hewed into the hills and cliffs.

They say, one must experience Cappadocia at three levels, From The Ground, From The Air and From below the surface. It is challenging to capture the ethereal surrealistic vibe of Cappadocia in a few days in a few images , but as my few days served only top whet my desire to revisit and revisit, I hope these few images in this series may inspire some to visit this enchanting wonderland.