Our next stop took us east to the town of Pamukkale (Turkish for “Cotton Castle”), home to some distinctive terraced travertine deposits and the ruins of the Roman city of Hierapolis. The tiny town itself doesn’t have much to offer (though we did find some half-decent Korean bi-bim-bap), and we spent one of our days here watching movies in our room while we waited out a rain storm. We spent the following day exploring the bleached-white travertines and the ruins that sit above them. The unusual landscape is the result of a series of hot springs along the top of the steep, 200-meter high slope that emit mineral-rich waters that deposit white calcium carbonate as they flow down the hillside, creating a series of pools and terraces.
As you walk uphill from the town you follow a path across the travertines (no shoes allowed!) to get to the ruins of Hierapolis. Here you get fabulous close-ups of this unique geological formation, nice views of the town and countryside, and can enjoy the warm waters that still flow down the terraces. Fortunately for us, few people took the time to walk up the travertines; most people, it seemed, got dropped off by their tour bus at the ruins at the top and only explored the upper 100 meters of the path through the travertines. These tourists did, however, make for excellent people watching: for some reason the site is popular among Russian tourists who pose provocatively for photos in their bikinis and speedos around the travertines; an interesting and peculiar contrast to the modestly dressed Turkish tourists (we also noticed this, to a lesser extent, at Ephesus).
At the top of the hill are the ruins of the Roman city of Hierapolis, founded as a spa and healing town in the second century BC (they believed that the waters had therapeutic properties). The site is extensive and contains the ruins of a Byzantine church and several temples, a 12,000-seat theater, agora (one of the largest ever discovered), baths and a public latrine house, and a large necropolis with hundreds of tombs overlooking the travertines. We spent an entire day exploring the fascinating site (and gaping at our fascinating fellow-tourists) then caught another overnight bus further east to the town of Goreme, in Cappadocia.
Click on the photo below to view our Pamukkale and Hierapolis photo album.
As you walk uphill from the town you follow a path across the travertines (no shoes allowed!) to get to the ruins of Hierapolis. Here you get fabulous close-ups of this unique geological formation, nice views of the town and countryside, and can enjoy the warm waters that still flow down the terraces. Fortunately for us, few people took the time to walk up the travertines; most people, it seemed, got dropped off by their tour bus at the ruins at the top and only explored the upper 100 meters of the path through the travertines. These tourists did, however, make for excellent people watching: for some reason the site is popular among Russian tourists who pose provocatively for photos in their bikinis and speedos around the travertines; an interesting and peculiar contrast to the modestly dressed Turkish tourists (we also noticed this, to a lesser extent, at Ephesus).
At the top of the hill are the ruins of the Roman city of Hierapolis, founded as a spa and healing town in the second century BC (they believed that the waters had therapeutic properties). The site is extensive and contains the ruins of a Byzantine church and several temples, a 12,000-seat theater, agora (one of the largest ever discovered), baths and a public latrine house, and a large necropolis with hundreds of tombs overlooking the travertines. We spent an entire day exploring the fascinating site (and gaping at our fascinating fellow-tourists) then caught another overnight bus further east to the town of Goreme, in Cappadocia.
Click on the photo below to view our Pamukkale and Hierapolis photo album.
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