Pamukkale, magnificent natural cotton fortress

Turkey is awesome with its magnificent natural resources. One of them was the fabulous white limestone that was used for bathing by people in Hierapolis era, called Pamukkale (a World Heritage Site). Pamuk means cotton in Turkish and Kale fortress, so the name means Cotton Fortress. The white mountain could be seen from the distance, it seemed like snow at the top of the mountain.


We had lunch in a beautiful restaurant with big swimming pool, on the background was the white Pamukkale. It's really amazing, we hurried to finish the lunch, we could not wait for visiting it soon. It's noon time, the sun shone so strong, we stopped by a garden with a nice pool with goose and duck, also a small fountain to take picture. We could see the beautiful Pamukkale from the garden.

There were some entrance to Pamukkale, our bus driver was selected the shortest way. On the bus stop we could not see the white mountain, we had to walk on foot around half an hour passing some ruin historic buildings to reach the leveling pools. For old people or anyone didn't like to walk, there was a shuttle cost 2 Liras/person.

It's so excited when we reached the racking pools. Visitors were able climb all over the "travertines" (collected pools) of mineral water. The water contains of various mineral, people believe that it's good for our health and it could cure diseases. My sister decided to put off her shoes and start playing with the warm water. There was a long dig that people were allowed to take a bath, not in the pool. The guard would shout if somebody tried to walk in to the pool. Because it's quite dangerous by the edge of the cliff, it's very slippery.


I wore sport shoes, it's difficult for me to take off, so I only took some pictures of my sisters from above the wooden bridge. Not too long I was attempted to try the water too. So I put off my shoes and left them on the wooden bridge to approach the travertines. The water was warm, it's not too hot, unfortunately it's not the place where we could swim or soak our body for relaxing. Too many people and too dangerous place for the activities. Anyway the scenery was very amazing, I wanted to stay there longer, but the time was limited.

My friend's children was running around, chasing each other. They played with the water, until their clothes were wet. One of them was falling, it caused her skirt was totally wet. All of us were enjoying visiting the place that we could not find in another place in the world, it's very unique.

Around 500 meters from the travertines, you could swim in the cleopatra's swimming pool cost 30 Turkish liras which has the hot, bubbly water. The swimming pool bottom was not covered with ceramic. It stayed as it was with some ruining of the building, you could see some broken pillars, stone, etc. People say if you open your eyes in the pool, the minerals in the water are supposed to be good for your eyes. You also could sit on the chair at the garden by the swimming pool with the ancient city as the beautiful background. There's also restaurants and shops facing to the pool.


We decided to take the shuttle to be faster going back to the bus, lucky it was raining hard when we arrived on the bus stop not during our visit to the pool. Our hotel was a thermal hotel, which had a thermal water in the pool that contains the same mineral as the travertines. Pam Thermal Hotel exists in the western part of Turkey, in Denizli city and Pamukkale Karahayit region, in the foot of forestry mountain. Karahayit region is also famous for its red water. This thermal spring which has its source within the hotel, fascinates everyone by its formation of beautiful red colored lime stones and thermal pools.


The thermal water of Pam Thermal Hotel all the year is 58 Celcius degree. The natural thermal mud has been used for medicinal and beauty purposes for centuries. This curative water with its thermo mineral and magnesium, calcium, carbon dioxide, sulfide and bicarbonate is suitable in many areas as a curative treatment. You could submerged your body inside the layering pool depend how hot you could stand. Nearer to the top would be hotter. You need to buy a swimming cap cost 2 Liras before you could enjoy the pool. It's very comfortable swimming and submerging in the warm water while the weather's cold. If you don't bring swimming suit, don't worry, you also could do it in the room. The water would be available only in certain hour period as written on the bathroom wall, so you could enjoy the warm curative water in the bathtub.

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