Pasabag or Monk’s Valley
When heading from Çavuşin towards Avanos, after about 1 km, you turn right and enter the road to Zelve Valley. In this area called Alibağ, there are quite high and interesting fairy chimneys. After traveling another 1 km and crossing the Akgedik gorge, you can see interesting rock formations on the right and left.
The section on the right, formerly known as Monks Valley or Monk’s Valley, is now called Pasabag. Here, among the grapevines, there are unique fairy chimneys with a single body and one, two, or three heads, each with a small basalt rock on top.
Pasabag is actually a natural exhibition area that showcases how the geomorphological formation in Cappadocia took place, displaying different levels of erosion, water levels from various periods, and changing colors and lines.
One of these independent singular fairy chimneys is the Chapel of St. Simeon. St. Simeon, who is believed to have lived between 390-459 in the Antioch and Aleppo region, lived on top of a column for years with his extreme ascetic approach, thus initiating the tradition of column saints.
Carved into a three-headed fairy chimney as a three-story structure in Monk’s Valley, this chapel emphasizes the Holy Trinity. The chapel’s walls feature scenes such as Simeon and His Mother, Simeon and the Rope, Simeon and the Woman Swallowed by a Snake, and Simeon Healing the Dragon, which are attributed to St. Simeon.
⇒ Go Turkey / Cappadocia
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