Ancient Roman cities & bathing!

We caught the interstate buses to Pammukale, ahh the luxury of a Turkish bus! They are cheap, and fancy like a nice coach. Reclining seats TV in the headrests, Greg and I can fit on them, plus a tea and coffee service on board! Beats all other buses we’ve used everywhere else in the world.
This particular route took us past stunning lakesides, villages on an island and lots of beautiful rolling hills.

Hierapolis or ‘Holy City’, an ancient Greco-Roman city now known as Pammukale (Cotton Palace!), is an unbelievable landscape of forests, petrified waterfalls and white terraced basins – perfect for bathing in warm thermal waters.

Originally located in Phrygia, Anatolia, which is famous for its legendary Kings who crop up in Greek mythology.  King Gordia – of Gordian knot fame, and King Midas – of the golden touch, both real people. Phrygians, according to Homer, also fought with the Trojans in the Trojan war, many many years ago. 

The Kings of Pergamon (dynasty of the Attalids – as above) at the end of 2nd century BCE established the thermal spa of Hierapolis, now a UNESCO World Heritage site. The thermal springs established the city as a place of healing and treatment, many citizens visiting to be cured of ailments or moving to retire there.

Today it’s an amazing site, full of Roman graves, ruins of the city itself, and amazing Roman baths – where you can bathe today swimming amongst the ruins of the original baths! For a history geek like me this was my ultimate win!

Necropolis
 We entered Hierapolis via the necropolis (city of the dead) on its out fringes and slowly made our way through to the city. It was a stunningly Beautiful day, blue skies, green grass bright sun and poppies amongst the tombs. 

Scrambling amongst the ruins, exploring like kids and unsuccesfully trying to ignore the fat, ill dressed European tourists (a flourescent bikini bulging in all the wrong places was an unwelcome sight not to mention the men sporting budgie smugglers!!). As we neared the city proper we stopped for victuals (roman snacks) at the enormous amphitheater. A wonderful view over the surrounding hillsides only spoilt by the odd Russian girls who were taking selfies, posing and pouting like on a modeling shoot. It was bizarre, and completely at odds with the setting! 

Now we arrived at the crowning jewel of this ancient city, the baths! 
My personal highlight of Turkey, was swimming in thermal pools amongst ruins of the ancient Roman baths. Oh wow!

A quick 2min video of what swimming in the baths is like!!! Check out the underwater ruins!

And lastly we reached every tourists dream, the travertines. The earth gives way to white clay, while warm water trickles through your toes, into stunning azure blue pools. We slipped and swam our way down beautiful hillside.

I also need to explain this photo. We saw this just about most tourist places we went. Yes, it is a magic carpet tour of Turkey. You sit on the carpet in front of the green screen and make silly faces, waving, while stock images of Turkey’s tourist sights are added in behind you on the video.
The guy operating the camera is hilarious in his enthusiasm for this souvenir. “Smile! Wave at me! Yes yes you are flying through the fairy chimneys of Cappadocia look at them! Oh yes! See over there!”

OH MY GOD. It was totally hilarious watching people pay money, to look stupid and get the most horrendous souvenir ever. So horrendous and awful I really wanted to do one. But my luckily (or not) my dignity stepped in and saved me!
Wheras sadly these guys didn’t get saved….https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNYdNqoehuw

A little day trip to an intriguing roman town, that was beautiful and peaceful. We walked around the old city, built by freeman Zoilos of Aphrodisias, a slave who had served and earnt his freedom from Emperor Hadrian himself, along with many riches. He came home and used those riches to make tiny Aphrodisias a remarkable city.  

The giant city gates, and temple ruins standing amongst the fields, create an amazing backdrop. 

The Stadium was just mind blowing – the largest I’d ever seen it measures 270 m by 60m wide and can seat 30,000 people. It’s actually the best preserved greek stadium in the world!

We wandered through city council chambers (now a small beautiful pond), ruins of the temple of Aphrodite (did they hold orgies here?), to the sculpted baths and city buildings adorned with larger than life marble gods. Lastly the amazing south agora with a long half excavated pool, it honestly looks like 200m long! The frogs have hilarious croaking sounds when mating.

I loved playing with the interactive 3d reconstruction of the old city in the tiny museum.  However Its crowning glory is the long stadium, which is in the best repair anywhere in the world. It was great and I ran half of it, 30,000 seats and it was in top condition. 

The whole site is very peaceful and idyllic and safe from hoards of tourists. I managed to grab a very yummy gozleme just before the bus left back to Pammukale. 

Dont miss Aphrodisias on your travels – it was one of our highlights and I’m sure you will love it too!

Stay tuned for our next stop booming Bodrum – for the beaches, the restaurants and the paaaar-tay!
Till next time!
Jade & Greg x