Pamukkale is a weird place. A very weird place. It's a small town full of touristy restaurants and hotels and guys telling you if you buy lunch you can swim in their hotel's pool. If you don't look up the street you could miss the reason you're in the town...
The famous calcium falls. I mean, come on these things are weird and so amazingly cool. I had never heard of this place before this trip but I have a feeling they may be on the 'top 100 cool things I saw' of this RTW trip.
I explored the travertines with Linnea and Kenzie, my 'Canadian Girls'. We waited until just before the sun started to set to go up (to avoid the worst of the heat). Just after the ticket booth we were instructed to take off our shoes and walk up the hill barefoot. I expected the ground to feel soft and slimey on my feet but it turned out to be hard and 'grippy' (for the lack of a better word). It was a bizarre sensation.
We started walking up the hill and there were several man-made calcium pools. Here, you could walk/wade into the water. Water was also running down the path, cooling our tired and burned feet.
We fooled around taking lots of photos and eventually made it to the top where there are naturally made calcium pools. You aren't allowed to go into these but the setting sun did make for some lovely pictures.
Interesting info: in the 80's there were actually hotels at the top of the hill and people could swim in the natural pools. But the hotels interfered with the water and started to damage the calcium pools so they were ordered closed and completely removed.
There are some ruins at the top (surprise, surprise) and we took a walk through them and up to the the amphitheater (surprise, surprise). I guess I can imagine that if I stumbled upon these weird naturally formed pools, I'd think that the gods were up to something too.
We ended up running back down to the pools because Linnea really wanted to see them as the sun properly set. I think we missed the 'real' sunset by about a minute but it was still beautiful. We hung out there for a bit and then started our way down the hill. They turn lights on at night, which added a whole other look to the pools.
My thoughts on the calcium falls - so very cool. Turkey you are starting to rock.
3 comments:
Oh wow! This looks absolutely amazing! I've never heard of this place either, but it's really stunning. The white calcium deposits are crazy beautiful, and your photos really do them justice. It will certainly be interesting to see if these can be topped!
The pictures look absolutely amazing. No doubt a wonderful place that few have rarely seem. Can't wait to see more...
xo
b
Wow, those calcium falls look amazing! You mentioned that there used to be hotels at the top, but they interfered with the water and damaged the calcium pools. Are the calcium pools used for anything?
Tiffany
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