We woke up to yet another view of the castle from our balcony. A quick Turkish Breakfast at our hotel, and we hit the road to head east. Our first stop was to Kaklik Magarasi, which is a cave filled with travertine pools and formations (travertine is essentially dissolved calcium that deposits slowly over time).
From there we drove to one of the crown jewels of Turkey: Hieropolis & Pamukkale.
Hieropolis was an ancient Roman city which was bustling around the 1st and 2nd centuries A.D. We walked through the ruins, which included a massive graveyard of stone tombs, latrines, temples, and gorgeous stone arch gates into and out of the city.
Hieropolis abuts a massive travertine waterfall formation: Pammukale. Pammukale is literally hundreds of feet of pure white calcium formation, of which only a few azure pools remain at the top (sadly a water diversion project has left this natural beauty largely dry). We waded around the warm pools, and of course, grabbed a pistachio ice cream cone.
We then drove to the city of Denizli for a quick dinner. A little wandering and some luck led us to exactly what we were looking for: Lahmacun!!! They were closing but warmly invited us in. As we enjoyed some minced spiced lamb pizza bliss and sipped ayran (a delicious Turkish yogurt drink), we also got to watch the Turkish version of ‘Survivor’. Does it get any better than this?!
– G