Pamukkale

After our adventures in Göreme we took another overnight 10 hour bus ride to Pamukkale which is another famous site of some old ruins and weird natural wonders.  I found the second overnight trip to be easy as our seats had HD TV screens and while none of the movies were in English, I ended up playing a dumb addictive game called Turbokids for about 4 hours and then slept most of the rest of the ride.  There is no wicked grumpy picture of me our first morning there.

The main ruins here are the old city of Hierapolis.  This is the main street.

Here's Chrissy sitting in the cathedral.

This is the tomb of Philip, one of the twelve apostles.  It was discovered to be his tomb during excavations in 2011, only three years ago.

This is where St. Philip was martyred, not far from  his tomb.  The sun was shining bright behind me when I took this picture.  Chrissy is lounging up ahead.

Here's the theater at Hierapolis.  The theaters are always one of my favorite ruins.  This one is still in pretty good shape.

Of course we had to play some ruins cribbage.

The real wonder of Pamukkale lies just below the ruins of Hierapolis with the travertines.  They are terraced hot springs leading back down to the town.  The water contains lots of calcium carbonate which gives the whole thing its white color.  Pamukkale means "cotton castle" in Turkish.

You can walk down a section of the travertines but you aren't allowed to wear shoes.  Since it was December and around sunset our feet got a little chilly.

It's OK though because you can stop and warm them up in the running hot spring water.

The whole place is really remarkable and unlike anything I've seen before.

Here's a close up of the ground.  It's nicer to try and walk on the smoother parts if possible.

Also near Pamukkale are the ruins of Laodicea which is mentioned in the book of revelation.  Here I am at the temple.

Their theater is in considerably worse shape than the others we've seen.

Finally, in another part of town is the red travertine.  Same idea as the white, but way smaller (this is basically the whole thing) and different minerals mean a different color.