Taiwan’s Yehliu Geopark is for geology enthusiasts like Disneyland and Legoland put together for an attraction-hungry kid.

Anyone who shows minimal interest in the ways in which the land that emerged on our planet was formed cannot miss a visit to those parts, although in fact, it is not just around the corner. But the effort will be rewarded by the vision of rock systems and geological specificities truly unique of their kind, among other things all concentrated within a single area of ​​the country and therefore easy to admire if you are not moved by anything else. If not pure curiosity, or to study, if instead, you want to take advantage of the opportunity to touch what you want to learn.

The incredible amount of different phenomena that can be encountered walking along the paths of Yehliu, a rocky tip that plunges into the ocean on the northeastern side of the island, is amazing. A real catalog of natural rocks, one more extraordinary than the other: step by step the comparison with amusement parks is gradually becoming more and more plausible.

The advice is to start from the Cuesta, a sort of leaning ridge, formed by layers of sedimentary rock, overlooking the sea: from there it is possible to have an overview of most of the natural sculptures that decorate the park.

What strikes first are the honeycomb rocks, large spherical boulders riddled with holes as if they were honeycombs, a conformation that is also seen replicated on the flat rocks of the surroundings, particularly vulnerable to the pressure of atmospheric agents, the first cause of the formation of those drawings. Then there are the mushroom rocks, with a large stone cap on a thin pillar that keeps them anchored to the undulating platform below, the most famous and photographed of which is the so-called “Queen’s head“: it is a rather massive rocky confirmation, in which the work of water and wind has ended up carving the profile of the Queen of England on one of the sides, an imaginative suggestion that from a certain perspective, however, gives credit to those who created it.

What about the “Fairy’s Shoe”, a sandal-shaped rock smoothed by atmospheric agents? Popular legend has it that it was abandoned there by a fairy who came down to earth to fight the turtle elf, but the likelihood is truly impressive.

As impressive are the Marine Bird Rock, a giant bird-shaped rock, the Ice Cream Rock, a real ice cream cone with two flavors, apparently chocolate and hazelnut, judging by the different colors, and the Peanuts Rock, a rock in seashore with two peanut-shaped stones.

And how many others there are, a real stone zoo, with specimens of gorillas, elephants, dragons, pigs, parrots, and so on and so forth. But the most incredible examples are the candle rocks: these are conical protuberances that rise on the ground topped by an elongated spherical concretion, a series of stone candles planted in the ground to defy the waves of the nearby sea.

Sometimes nature manages to beat even the most fervent imagination.