Cappadocia is a historical region in Central Anatolia, largely in Nevşehir Province, in Turkey.In the time of Herodotus, the Cappadocians were reported as occupying the whole region from Mount Taurus to the vicinity of the Euxine. Cappadocia, in this sense, was bounded in the south by the chain of the Taurus Mountains that separate it from Cilicia, to the east by the upper Euphrates and the Armenian Highland, to the north by Pontus, and to the west by Lycaonia and eastern Galatia.The name was traditionally used in Christian sources throughout history and is still widely used as an international tourism concept to define a region of exceptional natural wonders, in particular characterized by fairy chimneys and a unique historical and cultural heritage.Cappadocia was known as Hatti in the late Bronze Age, and was the homeland of the Hittite power centred at Hattusa. After the fall of the Hittite Empire, with the decline of the Syro-Cappadocians after their defeat by the Lydian king Croesus in the 6th century, Cappadocia was ruled by a sort of feudal aristocracy, dwelling in strong castles and keeping the peasants in a servile condition, which later made them apt for foreign slavery. It was included in the third Persian satrapy in the division established by Darius, but continued to be governed by rulers of its own, none apparently supreme over the whole country and all more or less tributaries of the Great King.The area is a popular tourist destination, as it has many areas with unique geological, historic, and cultural features.The region is located southwest of the major city Kayseri, which has airline and railway service to Ankara and Istanbul.The most important towns and destinations in Cappadocia are Urgup, Goreme, Ihlara Valley, Selime, Guzelyurt, Uchisar, Avanos and Zelve. Among the underground cities worth seeing are Derinkuyu, Kaymakli, Gaziemir and Ozkanak. The best historic mansions and cave houses for tourist stays are in Urgup, Goreme, Guzelyurt and Uchisar.Hot-air ballooning is very popular in Cappadocia and is available in Goreme. Trekking is enjoyed in Ihlara Valley, Monastery Valley, Urgup and Goreme.Sedimentary rocks formed in lakes and streams and ignimbrite deposits that erupted from ancient volcanoes approximately 9 to 3 million years ago, during the late Miocene to Pliocene epochs, underlie the Cappadocia region. The rocks of Cappadocia near Göreme eroded into hundreds of spectacular pillars and minaret-like forms. People of the villages at the heart of the Cappadocia Region carved out houses, churches and monasteries from the soft rocks of volcanic deposits. Göreme became a monastic centre in 300–1200 AD.

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The Swallow's Nest is a decorative castle located between Yalta and Alupka on the Crimean peninsula in southern Ukraine. It was built between 1911 and 1912 in Gaspra, on top of the 40-metre high Aurora Cliff, to a Neo-Gothic design by the Russian architect Leonid Sherwood.The castle overlooks the Cape of Ai-Todor on the Black Sea coast and is located near the remains of the Roman castrum of Charax.The Swallow's Nest is one of the most popular visitor attractions in the Crimea, becoming the symbol of the Crimea's southern coastline.The building is compact in size, measuring only 20 m long by 10 m wide.Its original design envisioned a foyer, guest room, stairway to the tower, and two bedrooms on two different levels within the tower. The interior of the guest room is decorated with wooden panels; the walls of the rest of the rooms are stuccoed and painted.An observation deck rings the building, providing a view of the sea, and Yalta's distant shoreline.Owing to its important status as the symbol of the Crimea's southern coast, the Swallow's Nest was featured in several Soviet films. It was used as the setting of Desyat Negrityat, the 1987 Soviet screen version of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None.The building was also featured in the 1983 Soviet-Polish children's film Mister Blot's Academy as well as in Mio in the Land of Faraway, a 1987 joint production by Swedish, Norwegian, and Soviet film companies.The first building on the Aurora Cliff was constructed for a Russian general circa 1895.The first structure he built was a wooden cottage romantically named the "Castle of Love."Later on, the ownership of the cottage passed to A. K. Tobin, a court doctor to the Russian Tsar.In 1911, Baron von Steingel, a Baltic German noble who had made a fortune extracting oil in Baku, acquired the timber cottage and within a year had it replaced with the current building.The Scots Baronial and Moorish Revival styles had been introduced in the Crimea in the 1820s by Edward Blore, the architect of the Vorontsov Palace. Compared to the Alupka and Koreiz palaces, the Swallow's Nest is closer in style to various German architectural follies, such as the Neuschwanstein Castle, Babelsberg Palace, and Stolzenfels Castle, although its precarious seaside setting on the cliffs draws parallels with the Belém Tower in Portugal, or Miramare Castle on the Gulf of Trieste outside Trieste, Italy.In 1914, von Steingel sold the building to P. G. Shelaputin to be used as a restaurant.For a short time after the 1917 Russian Revolution, the building was used only as a tourist attraction. In 1927, the Swallow's Nest survived a serious earthquake rated at 6 to 7 on the Richter scale.The building was not damaged apart from some small decorative items that were thrown into the sea along with a small portion of the cliff. However, the cliff itself developed a huge crack. In the 1930s, the building was used by a reading club from the nearby "Zhemchuzhina" resort,however it was closed shortly thereafter as a safety precaution due to the damage it had suffered in the quake, remaining closed for the next 40 years.Renovation and restoration of the building was started only in 1968. The project involved the restoration of a small portion of the castle and the addition of a monolithic console concrete plate to strengthen the cliff.Since 1975, an Italian restaurant has operated within the building.In 2011, the Swallow's Nest was closed for three months due to major restoration work estimated to cost 1,200,000 hryvnias.

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Pamukkale, meaning "cotton castle" in Turkish, is a natural site in Denizli Province in southwestern Turkey. The city contains hot springs and travertines, terraces of carbonate minerals left by the flowing water. It is located in Turkey's Inner Aegean region, in the River Menderes valley, which has a temperate climate for most of the year.Travertine terrace formations at Pamukkale, Turkey. May 21, 2011The ancient Greco-Roman and Byzantine city of Hierapolis was built on top of the white "castle" which is in total about 2,700 metres long, 600 m wide and 160 m high. It can be seen from the hills on the opposite side of the valley in the town of Denizli, 20 km away.Tourism is and has been a major industry. People have bathed in its pools for thousands of years. As recently as the mid-20th century, hotels were built over the ruins of Hierapolis, causing considerable damage. An approach road was built from the valley over the terraces, and motor bikes were allowed to go up and down the slopes. When the area was declared a World Heritage Site, the hotels were demolished and the road removed and replaced with artificial pools. Wearing shoes in the water is prohibited to protect the deposits.Pamukkale's terraces are made of travertine, a sedimentary rock deposited by water from the hot springs.In this area, there are 17 hot water springs in which the temperature ranges from 35 °C  to 100 °C.The water that emerges from the spring is transported 320 metres to the head of the travertine terraces and deposits calcium carbonate on a section 60 to 70 metres long covering an expanse of 240 metres to 300 metres . When the water, supersaturated with calcium carbonate, reaches the surface, carbon dioxide degasses from it, and calcium carbonate is deposited. The depositing continues until the carbon dioxide in the water balances the carbon dioxide in the air.[citation needed] Calcium carbonate is deposited by the water as a soft jelly,but this eventually hardens into travertine.This reaction is affected by the weather conditions, ambient temperature, and the flow duration. Precipitation continues until the carbon dioxide in the thermal water reaches equilibrium with the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Measurements made at the source of the springs find atmospheric levels of 725 mg/l carbon dioxide, by the time this water flows across the travertines, this figure falls to 145 mg/l. Likewise calcium carbonate falls from 1200 mg/l to 400 mg/l and calcium 576.8 mg/l to 376.6 mg/l. From these results it is calculated that 499.9 mg of CaCO3 is deposited on the travertine for every liter of water. This means that for a flow rate of 1 ı/s of water 43191 grams are deposited daily. The average density of a travertine is 1.48 g/cm3 implying a deposit of 29.2 dm3. Given that the average flow of the water is 465.2 l/s this implies that it can whiten 13,584 square metres a day, but in practice this area coverage is difficult to attain. These theoretical calculations indicate that up to 4.9 square kilometres it can be covered with a white deposit of 1 millimetre thickness.The former Roman Bath of the ancient city of Hierapolis has been used as the site of the Hierapolis Archaeology Museum since 1984.In this museum, alongside historical artifacts from Hierapolis, there are also artifacts from Laodiceia, Colossae, Tripolis, Attuda and other towns of the Lycos valley. In addition to these, the museum has a large section devoted to artifacts found at Beycesultan Hüyük that includes some of the most beautiful examples of Bronze Age craft.Artifacts from the Caria, Pisidia and Lydia regions are also on display in this museum. The museum’s exhibition space consists of three closed areas of the Hierapolis Bath and the open areas in the eastern side which are known to have been used as the library and gymnasium. The artifacts in open exhibition space are mostly marble and stone.

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