Uçhisar is by far the most conspicuous feature of the Cappadocian landscape. The castle is a solid chunk of rock with a thinner offshoot; from a distance the two parts resemble a giant snail dragging its shell across the landscape. In the past, families hollowed caves out of the rock and used them as retreats whenever enemies appeared; in more peaceful times those same caves provided homes for the locals, so that Uçhisar Kalesi functioned rather like a natural tenement block stuffed full of apartments.

In the 1950s the authorities moved residents out of the castle and into modern afet evleri (disaster houses) for fear of a landslide. They were only just in time -- in the 1960s a serious rock fall caused the collapse of the Ağa'nın Konağı (the Lord's Mansion), a palatial home that had been created inside it.