Kula Volcanic Geopark

The country around Kula is covered in the products of volcanic activity that continued into geologically recent times - around eighty cinder cones, extensive black basalt lava flows, craters and tuff rings, spread across the Gediz valley - and in 2013 it became Turkey's first UNESCO Global Geopark. The Romans called the district Katakekaumene, the burnt land, and it looks it: black fields, red-brown cones and the pale eroded pillars called peri bacaları, fairy chimneys, formed where softer sediment has been protected by harder caps, on a smaller scale than Cappadocia's but the same process. The best-known single feature is the Kula footprints, a set of human tracks preserved in volcanic ash and dated to many thousands of years ago, among the older such traces in Anatolia. Kula town itself has several hundred restored Ottoman houses and is a designated heritage settlement, which makes it the natural base.

What you actually see

• The cinder cones - dozens of volcanic hills across the valley.
• The black lava fields - basalt flows that name the burnt land.
• The fairy chimneys - eroded pillars in the sediment.
• The Ottoman town - Kula's restored houses and lanes.

When to go

April to June and September to October - the black rock makes summer heat worse and there is no shade at the sites. Spring brings green between the lava fields.

Honest expectations

Sites are scattered across a wide area and a car is essential; signage is improving but patchy. The fairy chimneys are modest compared with Cappadocia's. Facilities outside Kula town are minimal.

Nearby

Sardis is west along the Gediz valley; Salihli's thermal springs are between them.