I distinctly remember someone showing us pictures of Pamukkale when we were in Istanbul in 1996. We failed to return sooner. Today Pamukkale is a diminished version of its old self.
Pamukkale is a white travertine hill of pools formed by calcium carbonate deposits from the warm mineral spring that flowed from the top, where the spa town of Hierapolis was established in 90 BCE, and was in operation for more than a millennium. It took mere decades for modern humans to nearly ruin it. Much of the travertine is no longer white and only a pitiful amount of warm water trickles through. Nowadays the site hardly resembles its own promo photos.
Some efforts are made to curb further deterioration, though the site seems to have the disillusion of rehabilitation. Everyone had to take off their shoes and walk barefoot. Some areas are roped off. While most of the visitors followed the rules, a few wore shoes, went over barriers. I felt like I was watching a distilled picture of the earth itself. Humans (myself included) keep taking from Mother Nature, even knowing when it is to Her detriment, while some do it with trepidation and regret, others do it with oblivion and excess.
We paid our admission and entered the Pamukkale pools at the bottom.
It's a beautiful setting.
But there are tooooo many tourists.
Up at the top, the ancient Roman spa pool of Hierapolis now caters to tourists.
The archaeological site is fairly spread out. We enjoyed the Roman Theatre (1st below), and were introduced to the Ploutonion (2nd below). Named after Pluto the god of the underworld, and sitting on a seismic fault, it was revered as the Gateway of Hades.
While walking the ruins there was a downpour which we waited out by crawling inside an ancient tomb. ;-)
There is a commanding view of Hierapolis and the white travertine deposits from above the Greek Theatre of which 5 or 6 rows of seats are barely discernible.
Descending from the viewpoint we visited the necropolis (1st below), and the Roman collonaded street (2nd and 3rd below).
And finally a view over the travertine to the Hierapolis Site Museum, formerly Roman Baths.
Sun-Ling and John have been traveling the earth since 2008 while blogging, eating vegetarian and vegan, and riding public transportation. We love uphill day hikes, 20th-century architecture, Roman ruins, all bodies of water, local markets, shopping for groceries, aqueducts, miradors, trip planning, blablacar, and more.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Most Recent Post
Uzbekistan: Bukhara
Bukhara was a major city on the Silk Road. It had been the capital of various dynasties. Many of the buildings we see today originated duri...
Most Popular Posts of Last 30 Days
-
Tashkent, Uzbekistan is our entry into Central Asia. The Silk Road had been a destination for us for decades. Besides the usual concerns for...
-
Last week we hauled our canoe and tent over to Merchants Millpond State Park and enjoyed some very fine camping and paddling. One day we p...
-
Khiva is really the first stop on our upstream tour of the Silk Road. An important post on the Silk Road, Khiva was razed and rebuilt many t...
-
From TashKent, we took a flight west to Nukus, located in Karakalpakstan, an autonomous region of Uzbekistan. Nukus itself is a city establi...
-
Bukhara was a major city on the Silk Road. It had been the capital of various dynasties. Many of the buildings we see today originated duri...
-
The day before Easter we took the regional FSE train from Martina Franca to Bari, the 2nd largest city in southern Italy (after Naples) with...
-
We spent some extra time in Tashkent, because we wanted to catch the Persian New Year, Nowruz , in Tashkent, known as Spring Equinox to the ...
4 comments:
Wow- very interesting to see the pools.
So sad. I had heard that the site was deteriorating. As far as I remember you had to take your shoes off when I was there in the late 90s, but there were very few tourists. You could soak in the Roman pool then, too.
@Liz, you must not have seen their promo photos, All the pools were overflowing with water.
@Kathy, one could still soak in the Roman pool. It's an additional ticket. Even without shoes, I could see small pieces of travertine that had been broken off. I think their main problem is not having enough water.
Post a Comment