Pamukkale was a 4.5 hour painful bus ride from Fethiye. It was the smallest most uncomfortable bus ever…thankfully, the sites in Pamukkale made this so worth it! What an amazing experience, in my top ten for sure.
The main reason tourists flock to the tiny town of Pamukkale are the Hierapolis ruins and the travertine’s or terraces that spill over the side of the mountain and are so blindingly white you feel like you are looking up at a ski hill….one quite misplaced in 35C temperatures!
Pamukkale, which has been used as a spa since the second century BC, literally means "cotton castle" in Turkish.
The springs are present due to the many cracks and fissures in the earth’s surface here due to high tectonic activity. The temperature of the spring water as it emerges at the surface ranges between 35–56C flowing at a rate of 510 litres per second. The water is saturated with calcium carbonate and as it reaches the surface carbon dioxide is released into the air allowing the water to deposit the calcium carbonate until its carbon dioxide levels are balanced with those in the air. Initially deposited as a jelly-like substance, the calcium carbonate eventually hardens into travertine.
Pamukkale’s sacred pool is at the top of the travertine's, in the middle of the Hierapolis ruins, and remains from Roman times. It was the spiritual center of the spa city of Hierapolis. The pool is open for a swim and is 39C . It is surrounded by trees and underneath the water the floor of the pool is littered with the fallen marble columns, plinths and the occasional capital from the nearby Temple of Apollo, the pool is constantly refreshed by an inflow of hot calcium-laden mineral water.
The springs have been used by humans since antiquity. The spa and the city that emerged surrounding it acquired the name Hierapolis, meaning ‘holy city’. A cosmopolitan place with large populations all lured by the prosperity of the booming spa town, the city would grow to over 100 000 residents at its height after a 60 AD earthquake necessitated the rebuilding of the city.
While numerous empires would hold control over the site over the millennia, the same fault line that helped produce the hot springs that gave Hierapolis its existence also helped bring about its downfall. Earthquakes have riddle the city since at least 60 AD, as seen by the various Roman and Byzantine ruins and relics found at the site that have been torn apart by faulting. Hierapolis fell into severe decline in the early 7th century when it was both sacked by Persian troops and hit with a major earthquake within a short period of time.
Its fate was sealed in 1354 when another earthquake destroyed the decaying city. Over the ensuing centuries, much of the ruins of Hierapolis were progressively encased in limestone thanks to the constant deposition of material from the springs.
Sadly, in the 50’s hotels were built directly in the ruins of Hierapolis. A road directly to the terraces was constructed which saw motorcycles traverse the slopes at will, and the great influx of tourists to Pamukkale began inadvertently wrecking the travertine with their heavy shoes stripping the jelly-like deposits from the travertine before it had a chance to harden.
In order to preserve the ruins and springs and to let the formations evolve naturally, Hierapolis and Pamukkale were declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1988. The buildings constructed in the ruins Hierapolis were removed, the road that formerly traversed the terraces has been closed, and visitors were banned from wearing shoes when bathing and walking on the formations and the hotels and museums were moved further away from the springs. Thanks to these measures combined with the fast-acting deposition of the springs, Pamukkale has recovered.
We stayed at a fantastic family run hotel called Melrose House that was really beautiful and our nicest accommodation yet…also the cheapest ironically. They were amazing cooks and the food was the best we have had so far. There was also a 4 month old golden retriever puppy, Chilli, to play with.
We were told by our hotel not to arrive to the travertine's until 4pm…masses of day trippers flock in from other surrounding cities and overrun the site until late afternoon. We drove up as all the huge buses were driving away and practically had the place to ourselves. We sat in the warm water of the travertine's and watched the beautiful sunset, it was magical.
We were supposed to leave for an early bus to Selcuk the next day but liked this little town and the hotel so much we decided to take a day off from vacation and sleep in, enjoy the pool, shop in the town (great onxy factory here) and take a 16:30 bus to Selcuk instead. That bus, unlike the last one, was huge, spacious and had onboard wifi! It was good to have a lazy day.
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