Cappadocia’s Multistorey Cave Flats: The Original High-Rises

If you think London’s terraced houses are a squeeze, wait until you see Cappadocia’s answer to the multistorey building. Here, in the honey-coloured tuff of central Turkey, locals have been carving out their own “apartments” for centuries-except instead of bricks and mortar, they used a handy mountain and a bit of determination. The result? Troglodyte towers like the one in your photo: a sort of prehistoric block of flats, minus the dodgy lift and with considerably better insulation.

Each “floor” is a room or two, chiselled straight into the rock, often connected by tunnels and the odd precarious staircase. The windows and doors, neatly squared off, give the whole thing a slightly whimsical, dollhouse look-if your dolls were Byzantine monks or pigeon fanciers. Speaking of pigeons, many of these upper chambers doubled as dovecotes, their little holes painted to attract birds, whose droppings were the original miracle-grow for the region’s vineyards.

Living here meant cool summers, warm winters, and a workout every time you fancied a cup of tea from the neighbours upstairs. In short: Cappadocia, where the real estate market has always been a bit… rocky.