Pamukkale
We traveled today from Cesme to Pamukkale, which is about 200 miles southeast. Having forgone the $400 private car service, we instead went the full on bus experience – churning through a total of three buses before finally getting to our hotel. While a little underwhelmed by the Tripadvisor choice in Cappadocia, we decided to stick with them one more time and are booked for the night at a place called the Melrose Hotel.
Pamukkale’s claim to fame is the white hillside on the outskirts of town, formed by thousands of years of mineral-laden water bubbling up from a hot spring and leaving calcium behind as it cools. The Romans liked the place so much, they built an entire city at the top called Hierapolis, whose primary attraction was the baths fed by the springs. Many of the ruins are still visible, but for us, they are a side note next to the natural wonder of the travertines.
A big problem with nature is that it occurs on such a scale that it’s hard to capture with a picture. We still joke about the hundreds of pictures we have from Arches National Park in Utah that were all “must haves” at the time, but after getting them home, looked mostly indistinguishable from one another. Pamukkale is no different, so for anyone interested in looking at a hundred pictures of white rocks, I know a guy, who knows a guy that has some.
The site is a lot more controlled now than it has been in the past (before it became a UNESCO site, some jackleg thought it would be a good idea to carve a road right up through the middle of it so lazy people wouldn’t have walk to the top). For $15 a head (which they use to fund maintenance and restoration), you can walk across the travertines in your bare feet (no shoes allowed) and lounge in the series of pools that have formed along the trail. There are pretty strict rules about staying in certain areas (security guards whistle you down if you try and go off the beaten path), but sadly none dealing with men wearing banana hammocks or women seriously straining the holding power of bikini fabric.
As the afternoon passes the temperature falls pretty quickly, so we head down into the town to find some dinner. Like most places we have been so far, it is pretty quiet, but definitely built to accommodate a horde as summer wears on. While some warmer days would definitely have been appreciated this trip, we’re thankful we came the time of year when we did.
The Melrose turns out to be one of our favorite hotels so far, restoring our faith in Tripadvisor, its clean, quaint, and the owners are almost annoyingly friendly. There is a large part of me that wouldn’t mind spending a bit more time here, sitting out on the patio with something engaging on the Kindle, but tomorrow its back on the bus and off to the Turkish Riviera.