And to think that I saw it in Cappadocia Mar 2, 2020

And to think that I saw it in Cappadocia

The fantastical "fairy chimneys" found in central Turkey"s historical Cappadocia region were formed by a collision of the natural and the man-made—and they form a scene that seems straight out of a Dr. Seuss illustration. The landforms were created when volcanoes deposited mounds of soft, porous rock called tuff, which was later covered with hard basalt. In the 10th century (though possibly starting up to 5,000 years ago) humans excavated the tuff to create caves and catacombs that could fit thousands of dwellers. Through not only the astonishing ruins but the many "cave hotels" hewn into rock in the city of Göreme, the memory of those ingenious city planners lives on.

© Ivan Kmit/Alamy

palette

Today in History

Mar 2, 2018Satellite image of sand and seaweed in the Bahamas
Mar 2, 2019You won’t see this on Mulberry Street
Mar 2, 2021Fall for Chile
Mar 2, 2022Mount Rainier National Park
Mar 2, 2023Negratín Reservoir, Granada, Spain
Mar 2, 2024Modica, Sicily, Italy
Mar 2, 2025Megalong Valley, Blue Mountains National Park, Australia

More Desktop Wallpapers:

Feb 12, 2018National Museum of African American History and Culture
Jun 18, 2023Happy Fathers Day!
Aug 25, 2020Punakaiki on South Island, New Zealand
Jul 27, 2024Vineyards in the Mosel Valley, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany
Jun 21, 2021The tallest animal in the world on the longest day of the year
Feb 7, 2025Blue hour in Trondheim, Norway
Jan 25, 2023Burns Night
Jun 4, 2019Breaking the fast for Eid
Jul 30, 2021Working for that cliffside view
Nov 10, 2024Caribbean flamingos, Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico
Mar 20, 2022World Frog Day
Nov 17, 2021Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary
Aug 19, 2019On the wings of the Wright brothers
May 7, 2022Astronomy Day
Jan 23, 2022Wedded Rocks, Japan
Feb 13, 2021Four little birds sitting in a tree…
Jun 10, 2022Poppies in bloom
Oct 17, 2024Frost-covered dunes on Mars
Aug 4, 2020Into the woods
Mar 31, 2021Paradise, found
Sep 15, 2024National Hispanic Heritage Month
Jan 19, 2018Old Town in Prague, Czech Republic
Jan 24, 2020Sunlight sets Iceland s Eyjafjallajökull aglow
Apr 13, 2025Songkran—Thai New Year
Dec 5, 2025Maya site of Copán
Aug 29, 2018A spectacle unlike any other
Dec 10, 2019Congratulations, 2019 Nobel Prize laureates!
Dec 9, 2019Let s crack the code
Jul 10, 2021Celestial Spain
Oct 7, 2019From the mind of Frank Gehry