This morning we bused to Pamukkale, a “tourist” town a few hours inland from Selçuk. The main attraction here are white terraces of travertine, which is calcium carbonate that is left from water flowing from a number of hot springs in the area. At the top of the terraces are the ruins of the ancient city of Hierapolis. We didn’t want to go the the terraces until later, so we could avoid the tour groups there on day trips, so after checking in to our hotel we headed to the village of Karahayit by local bus, having read of the red terraces there. It wasn’t really worth the effort, they were quite small, and inside a tourist park of some sort, with lots of shops selling tourist trinkets.
We headed back to Pamukkale and walked to the terraces, which can be seen from quite a distance, looking like a white mountain. Shortly after entering we had to remove our shoes, we then headed up along with hundreds of other visitors. The spring water flows down over the terraces (and your feet), and forms pools of pale blue water, quite a remarkable sight. Also at the top is the Antique Pool, where you can swim in the water which supposedly has therapeutic properties.
Once at the top, we put our shoes back on and wandered around the edges of the travertine and into the ruins of Hierapolis. The number of people in the ruins was very small, we didn’t see any more than about 20 or so – while there were hundreds on and around the terraces. We finally made it back down the terraces and into town by around 7:30pm, though we could have stayed much later, as the terraces and ruins are actually open 24 hours.
No comments:
Post a Comment