 Cappadocia Landscape 1975 © Ricky Yates |
 Cappadocia Landscape 2009 © Ricky Yates |
I remarked in my previous post, that the landscape of Cappadocia in places looks more lunar than earthly! I think the two photographs above give a fairly clear indication of what I mean. The one on the left is a scanned slide taken during my trip in 1975. Unfortunately, the colour of the foreground has faded somewhat owing to the passing of 35 years. The one on the right is of the same area but from a slightly different angle, taken during my recent trip in October 2009.
The soft nature of so much of the rock has lent itself to being carved into, in order to provide houses, stables for animals, dovecotes, storage facilities and the like. These days, not many people live in purely cave dwellings. But many houses with stone frontages often still extend backwards into older hillside caves.
Below is a picture of the village of Uchisar which lies immediately below the highest point of this amazing lunar landscape. Caves carved into the rock face can be seen in conjunction with more modern village houses.
The village of Uchisar, Cappadocia © Ricky Yates
Uchisar looks like an amazing settlement, i wonder what it would have been like to live in an area like that.