Today, fairy chimneys in Cappadocia. The locals call them fairy chimneys because they look like homes in fairy tales.

Volcanoes blew, ash and tuff blanketed this area for 100s of miles tens of thousands of years ago. Then a lake. Then the water went somewhere. After that years of erosion. What's left are valleys of tuff peaks that are soft enough to carve out rooms and such. Some of the villagers lived in these fairy chimneys for many years. Now have moved into modern houses in town with modern plumbing, easier life.

The fairy chimneys are mostly used for pigeons these days. From the pigeons is collected guano, fertilizer for the fields. Within the last couple decades the realization that tourists might possibly be interested in seeing, and even staying in these cave dwellings has taken hold. We went into one of the cave/fairy chimneys that was at one time a little chapel, with paintings on the altar area. We sang Amazing Grace and the acoustics were great - and apparently applified our chorus to the nearby area. I'll try to upload pix or two, but it take soooo much time to get even on uploaded and this is a shared computer, so what you see is what I could do.