Pammukale and Hierapolis

Pammukale is a town often featured in the always-faded tourist photos of Turkey that usually grace the walls of the budget hostels where we stay. We saw one of these in Bodrum and were excited to see what it would look like now (and if those short-shorts so popular in the 1970s were still in fashion).

Pammukale is known for its pure white tarvertine shelves and pools which were created when the calcium-rich warm water of the area cooled onto the land and cliff edges (and less naturally onto the cement retaining walls of the pools). To enter the site, you have to walk up about 200 m through pools and travertines which is very beautiful but a little hard on the feet. It was even better coming down as the sun was setting with all of the little shadows making the texture more visible.

On the top of the cliffs, the Romans built a spa town in order to enjoy the restorative properties of the water and the ruins are pretty good. While the main part of the ruins is over-run with tours, walking out to the necropolis was a great way to spend a few relaxing hours and to see the ruins. One of the highlights here is to swim in a pool complete with a tumbled-down Roman column, but at 20 TL each (about $15 AUD) we gave it a miss. The other highlight (for us anyways) was the number of Russian men wearing nautical captain's hats - why do they seem to buy them en masse?