Tour of Turkey

Day 13:  Selcuk

Since we got here so early yesterday and did so much, we decided to take a day trip to Pamukkale.  The pictures here won't do it justice, but it was a very interesting place on a lot of levels.  Because of the geological formations here, the ancient Greeks (then Romans) build a holy city just above them, called Heiropolis.  The hot springs and sand were said to have healing properties, so there were healers here, shrines to the gods, and a large necropolis (the largest in the area).

Ancient Bath House (Thermal Spa)

Theater

Heiropolis was built this close to the springs

So these hot springs come from the earth with a high concentration
of calcium, which leaves deposits of white all over.

And created terraces of pools.

We could even walk through them.

See, Jason was really there, too.

The terraces reminded us of Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone, except all in white.  In Mammoth Hot Springs, the water had high concentrations of Sulfur, creating the cool colors (and the bad smell).  In Pamukkale, it's all calcium, so no odor and all white, which makes it difficult to photograph for sure.

When we were done, we drove the 2.5 hours back to Selcuk.  A long drive, but the landscape was lovely.

Mom and Jade played chess on the roof deck while I had a bit of a rest, then we decided to head into Kusadasi (koosh-adasi) for dinner.  We ate at a fancy fish place where we were brought into the kitchen to choose our fish, they were all layed out on the ice and we got to pick the piece we wanted for dinner.  It was all so fresh and so tasty, and the view was lovely.

View #1 from our table

View #2 from our table

Filleting our fish table side

After dinner, we walked down the marina to an outdoor cafe with live music for one drink and then headed home.  Tomorrow we are going to see family, so we will likely not post until the following day, when we head back to Istanbul to close out this amazing trip.

Tour of Turkey

Day 12:  Selcuk

Well, today we went from the coastal part of the trip back inland.  We are drove to Selcuk (pronounced sel-chook), which is our base town for the next two nights, and met my mother there.  We booked two rooms, a double for Jason and myself, and a twin for my mother and Jade.  Since we were going to meet my mother, we got up and out of Bodrum quickly, which meant that we had time to begin our sightseeing early in Selcuk.  Our hotel managers told us to wait to see the ruins at Ephesus until after 5 so that the crowds would be gone and the temperature would come down a bit, so we started with Sirince instead.

Sirince is a cute little town, but again, a little too touristy for us.  It was jam packed with cars and pedestrians walking the adorable, hilly streets, so of course the streets were lined with souvenir shops.  We ate some lunch and headed out.

Not a great picture, but you get the idea

After Sinince, we were finally ready for Ephasus.  We changed into our walking shoes and headed out.  Ephasus was once the second largest city in the world after Alexandria, now we can walk the ruins streets.  With a population of over 400,000, the city had everything from a famous library, enourmous theater, public latrine with a sewer system, several bathhouses, homes of course, public square, market, port (though the river that once brought water and ships to the port has dried up), along with fountains, columns, marble roads, etc.

The smaller of the theaters, this one was actually used for meetings.
The pieces of columns  in front were to the state building.  

The street leading from the state house at the top of the hill
to the library and public areas at the bottom.
To the left walking down were homes build up the hills.  To the right were more
public buildings like the bath house, latrines, etc.

Along the road were ruins of fountains, statues and columns like this one.

This is how the above picture would have looked intact. 

The famous library.  This building was build with double walls
to keep the humidity out and insulate the books.

The large theater.  This would hold up to 25,000 people.

The road from the theater to the port.

After Ephasus, we ate some dinner and crashed.  We have all day tomorrow and haven't decided yet what to do.  We have several day trips to choose from.