Well, we’ve had one…now we just have to see how long it takes for us to RECOVER from it!
So…up about 7, showered, packed up and down to breakfast at 8 a.m. Fortunately, R remembered the camera so we could take a picture. We so much enjoyed the Hotel Nilya that we wanted to know if we could stay there again on our last night in Turkey. So, paid bill and down to the Hotel Bella to check on a reservations…and they had one room left, which we now have! Said goodbye to everyone; really enjoyed meeting everyone, and figure that we can get the ceramics we want when we return there, and won’t have to schlep them around Turkey with us!
On the road to Pamukkale about 9; took us about 3 hours to get here. Very nice roads, not too much traffic, even in cities! Do hope this continues! Emmy (GPS) brought us right to Hotel Han-Tur. We sipped on apple tea and regular tea for a few minutes until our room was ready – top floor, big balcony facing right across the street to the travertines.
So…the story begins. Pamukkale is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. There is a spring on the hill from which hot mineral water gushes – and apparently has gushed since time immemorial! The water spewing forth is very rich in calcium chloride, with the result being huge cliffs of white travertine with beautiful light blue pools at the top. There is also an ancient city – Hieropolis – among the travertines, with a beautiful arena and an amazing street lined with sarcophagi. When we were driving this way, and were still about 20 miles away, we could actually see the travertines gleaming in the sun; no wonder they are famous! The nice man at our hotel suggested that he could drive our car with us in it up to the north (or top) gate, we could enter there, and then walk back down into town…it sounds SO easy, doesn’t it? No problems…I should have spoken up when it appeared that our host didn’t know how to drive a manual transmission, and I was really afraid that he would put us over the edge! However, we made it to the top – time about 1 p.m., temperature somewhere in the low 80’s, and the sun BLAZING down…so far so good…used the top as an excuse to have our Magnum Classics of the day – R too, for once! (I hate eating ice cream alone…) We had a very long walk through Hieropolis, and with the sun blazing off the marble walkway, it got REALLY hot! We went through the ruins, and then took a path by the travertines; lovely to look at!
Then we decided that enough is enough, and we wanted to get back to the hotel…question was, HOW? Our host had told us to “walk” down and come out the center gate right in the middle of town. The only difficulty was, we would have to take off shoes and socks and then walk over the travertines and through the water to get to the bottom! Quelle Surprise! Our only other option, as explained by a man at the gift shop at the top, was to walk the longer walk across the top (in shoes and socks, though!) and then get a cab for 10-15 TLR (Turkish Lira) back to the hotel … he recommended the walk. So…back to the travertines we went, off came shoes and socks, and out we started. I was more than a little nervous about Robert, and having flashbacks of the nine firemen who got him off the wall in Aigues-Mortes…I think he was remembering that too! So…our watchwords: WATCH WHERE YOU PUT YOUR FEET! As it turned out, the white travertine wasn’t slippery at all – in fact, it provided very good traction! There were places, however, where some sort of growth or moss was on the travertine, and they became VERY slippery indeed! And all this, I’ll have you know, while lots of people are wandering around in the water, and there are torrents of water rushing past us and down the hill to the next pool! There was also an overflow channel that ran down the side, and we had to keep going back and forth over it, to work our way down. R estimates the walk was a little less than a mile, and it took us a fairly long time to do it, as we went VERY slowly! Finally, as we got to the next-to-the-last pool, there were stones ALL over the bottom – VERY hard on the feet, I can tell you! Made it past the pools and put our shoes on; another five or ten minutes walk and we were at the hotel. Whew … NO BROKEN BONES!! Yipee!! (Although I would REALLY like to know how many people they have to pull from those pools in a broken state each day!)
We both literally dumped all of our clothes as soon as we got inside the room, and took turns getting into the shower. We’ve been back probably an hour now, and R is saying that he is just now starting to cool off! What an incredible experience! Whew! So…we have now experienced the “Cotton Candy” of Pamukkale first-hand…definitely needs to be seen to be believed!
Much love,
m
xxx
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