Pamukkale and Hierapolis

One of the major sightseeing attractions in Turkey is Pamukkale. Pamukkale is a white mountain made of calcium. It looks kind of like an iceberg. It is a natural phenomenon made from the water that contains a large amount of calcium and flows along several terraces down the mountain. The water has a temperature of 35C and comes from a source deep down the earth. Pamukkale means cotton in Turkish. There are several baths as well as the water is supposed to have a healing quality.

It was a beautiful sunny day when we visited, bright blue sky so the mountain was brilliantly white. It was up to 18C, we couldn’t have had better weather to visit Pamukkale. We had to take our shoes off to prevent damage to the calcium layers. We walked up along the terraces and partially through the small pools that form everywhere. It really looks amazing and we constantly felt like we were in the snow somewhere, despite the nice temperature. At some parts the terrain was a bit rough for our bare feet, but on the plus side, our feet are now nice and smooth :).

When we were up the mountain we got a surprise. There was a giant ancient city up there! It turned out we didn’t do our homework very well. We thought we were only going to walk up and down the mountain, and that was it. We completely missed the fact that the ancient city of Hierapolis was up there as well…. Well it was a nice surprise! The city is really well maintained. It is an ancient Greek / Roman city, founded in the 2nd century bc and people lived there up to the 14th century. At one point 100.000 people lived there, using the thermal healing baths. If you want to see it all, you’ll need a whole day. There are remnants of streets, baths, houses, a theatre and several temples. There is also an ancient pool, still in use and a museum up there, but they were now closed.

We spend a very pleasant afternoon up there and then walked down the calcium mountain again. Which now looked a bit different because the sun was going down.

Down in the village we ate a nice Turkish pancake, filled with meat. When we were up the calcium mountain we spotted a nice place to camp, with a view of Pamukkale so we drove up there and indeed found a nice quiet place to stay for the night.