Visitors are flocking to a Turkish tourist attraction which has been dubbed “Love Valley”.
The famous region of Cappadocia has seen an influx of tourists travelling by hot-air balloon to check out the phallic-shaped pillars, which have been dubbed by some travellers, the “c*ck rocks”.
The huge phallic formations may look like a homage to male fertility, but they have been naturally formed by erosion of the volcanic rock.
The number of tourists visiting the Cappadocia region reached a record 1 million last year, according to tourist officials who have been monitoring the increasing interest in this area of eastern Anatolia, central Turkey, over recent years.
Although the rocks may make people smirk, they are simply the result of ancient volcanic eruptions, between 9 million and 3 million years ago during the late Miocene to Pliocene epochs, which covered the region with thick ash that solidified into soft rock many metres thick.
Every morning before sunrise, hundreds of hot-air balloons rise into the air above Cappadocia, each holding about a dozen passengers for a dawn fly-by. They float above and around the beautiful rock formations that have jokingly been referred to as “willy valley” by one travel blogger.
Cappadocia is now considered one of the world’s most popular destinations for hot-air ballooning. – Daily Mail