Pamukkale

On the Cotton Castle, as the Turks call Pamukkale

Pamukkale means cotton castle in Turkish.  








The city has hot springs that have healing minerals. We were not allowed to wear shoes on the castle.  

One of the Pamukkale pools

The spring waters have some mineral called calcium or something that cause terraces of carbonate minerals left by the flowing water.  The terraces are called travertines.  I found this in my Pamukkale journal book that I bought in the souvenir shop.

The pools go down the mountainside

We went to 15 of the 17 pools that terrace down the mountainside. The pools were not hot.   The water cools off as it is carried to the pools. These pools are knee deep.  The bottom is like squishy stuff that feels and looks like ice cream but is not cold like ice cream.

Not snow.

The guide said that some 5 star hotels are using and have diverted some of the spring waters.  They have used so much that Pamukkale will no longer exist in 150 years.  It will all be dried up by then.

Near lowest pool at Pamukkale.  See valley and mountains in background.

Swimming in Cleopatra's Pool

Standing on broken
column in Cleopatra's Pool

We also went to Cleopatra's pool which is supposed to make you young and keeps your skin from wrinkling.  Mark Anthony gave this pool to Cleopatra as a wedding gift.  We swam though the water , but they had a rule that you had to be 16 to go to the deep end even though Zach went to the other side. They had broken up columns in the pool. 

A toppled column in Cleopatra's Pool

I did not know much about Mark Antony or Cleopatra so Tutu explained about them.  Cleopatra was the queen or pharaoh of  Egypt but she really wasn't Egyptian.  The real Egyptians had died long before the Ptolemy family came to Egypt.  The first Ptolemy was a general with Alexander the Great and he was Macedonian, not Egyptian.  So really Cleopatra was Macedonian.  She was very short and skinny and had a big nose.  Mark Antony was Roman.  His name was Marcus Antonius but people called him Mark Antony.  He is the one who said, "Friends, Romans, countrymen.  Lend me your ears" according to a Shakespeare play.  Mark Antony and Cleopatra killed themselves in Egypt rather than be captured by the Romans.

One of the hot spring sources at
Cleopatra's Pool

There were also lots of ruins of the ancient city of  Hierapolis  all around Pamukkale.  It is also spelled Heropolis.  The guide said it was named after the Greek goddess Hera.  We saw the theater and a big museum and some roads and a lot of buildings.  But after seeing Ephesus we didn't want to look at any more ancient ruins.

Hierapolis theater in background and something
else closer.  These old ruins all look the same.

Here is a drawing I made of the pools at Pamukkale.

Ephesus

Something I don't remember

Bus to Ephesus

We went to Ephesus. We woke up early and went on a dolmus to town.  A dolmus is a little bus.  The word dolmus means squeezed.  And sometimes we get squeezed when the driver lets too many people get on.  Then we waited on a bus. When we got on the bus we went to a Turkish delight shop and we ate halva.  The chocolate halva was the best. 

Glad Tutu brought the umbrella.  It was hot.

Then we went to ancient city Ephesus.  Ephesus is really big but the guide said it was only 13% uncovered so far.  Most of the town is still under ground. Ephesus one of the best preserved ruins.  It was hot walking in Ephesus.

Restrooms.  Water was in trench
by his foot to wash bottoms.

We saw ancient restrooms called latrines.  The restrooms were only for Roman men.  The men all went in there together.  Gross!  


In the cold the slaves had to sit on the marble seats and warm the seats for their masters.  There was water flowing in a little trench in front of the seats.  The men or their slaves would wet sponges in that water and then clean themselves after using the restroom.  Sometimes the slaves would clean their masters bottoms and sometimes the rich Roman man would do it himself.  But the slave always had to clean the sponge afterward.  YUCK!  The slaves and women could not use the latrines.  They had to use the fields.  I'm glad we don't have those rules today.

Hercules Gate.  It was in middle of the main road.  The columns made the
road get narrow so wagons could not go down this road.  It was for
walking people.

Library of Celsus

We saw the Library of Celsus, which means Library of Caesar.  It was the first and largest library in the world.  It was a huge building.  There were only 2 libraries in the ancient world.  This one and one in Alexandria Egypt.  Tutu said there also was one in China but the guide did not talk about that one.








Ephesus also was the first place in the world to start a bank.  The guide called it the Bank of Asia.  He said Ephesus was the financial capital of the world.  Kind of like New York City today.  Rome was the government capital but Ephesus was the money capital.

Ephesus had largest theater in ancient world

Down the road from the library was the largest theater in the ancient world.  The sound worked really good.  Another man in our tour group stood on the stage area and said "Friends, Romans, Countrymen.  Lend me your ears."  Zachary sat in seats in the middle about halfway as high as they would let you go, and he said he could hear the man good.  The guide said that the theater was even larger.  They know there are 2 more levels of seating that have not been dug up yet and put back in place.




The first advertisements in the world were in Ephesus.  The first advertisement was for brothels, which is disgusting.  Tutu told me what a brothel was.  The guide didn't tell us.  Stones were put in the street near the harbor.  They put the woman's name and a drawing of her on the stone.  They also put a heart that was broken and a circle that looked like money coins.  And a big footprint.  They had different shape footprints for different women.  If a sailor had a broken heart and some money, he could find a stone of a women he liked and follow the footprints to that woman's house or brothel and have her company to ease his broken heart.  Papa said that later they invented addresses and phone numbers.  I made a drawing of how the guide said these advertisements looked.

                                                                                                                                                                                        Tutu and I saw the House of the Virgin Mary, also called Mother Goddess Mary's House.  Virgin Mary came to Ephesus with St. John after Jesus was crucified.  She lived there for the rest of her life.  The red bricks and stones were the original house.  The regular stones were added to rebuild it.  I wrote a prayer note and sprinkled it with holy water and put it on the stone wall with the other notes left by other people.  Her house was a small chapel with no bed or table.  I don't see how she could have lived there with no bed and no table.  We washed our hands in holy water.  There were policemen with big guns.  The guide said the policemen were there to keep away crazy terrorists with silly religious ideas.  We did not have a camera to take pictures because Papa kept it.  Papa and Zach went to the Ephesus Museum while we went to Virgin Mary's house.  Here is a link to a page that shows what the house looks like and tells some things about it.
House of the Virgin Mary

Delightful Turkey Summer

I  just arrived in Turkey 2 weeks ago, it feels 1 hour ago!  I forgot to tell you guys that its great that you can read my blog. 


First when we got off the boat in Fethiye we went on a walk . On our walk we went on the road to a Turkish ice cream wagon. Turkish ice cream is not fast melting ice cream.  Click on this link to see a Turkish ice cream man:  
An example of what Turkish ice cream man does

Lounging on mizzen deck

How to relax when the sun is too hot

Then we went to the harbor master and Papa had our names added to the crew list,and on our way back we saw a giant turtle (we also saw his dog friend, too.)  

Dinghy driving lesson.  I did not hit our boat.

When  we left  Fethiye  we went  to Tomb Bay. We swam and kayaked and we also went hiking.   Papa taught me how to drive the dinghy.

One of the white goats

After Tomb Bay we went to Kucuk Kuyruk  (This means Rear End.  The bay is shaped like someone's rear end.  That is funny.)  There were lots of goats on the mountains at Kucuk Kuyruk.  I wanted to go pet them but Tutu said no.


We kayaked a lot at Kucuk Kuyruk.

The water was really pretty at Kucuk Kuyuk.

Then we  went to a market anchorage.  It made the boat roll so much I thought I would fall out of my bed.  When we tried to leave the wind was too strong. So we sailed for fun for a few hours and Papa ran the watermaker.  Then we went back and stayed there for two more days.  (Note from grandmother:  a 'market anchorage' is what she calls any anchorage that has a small grocery store.  Most anchorages we have visited have been uninhabited.)

Loggerhead turtle eating crabs at Caunos

 In the market anchorage we also took a tour boat that took us to a river that led up to a huge ancient city (Caunos).  We walked around some and saw an old Roman theater.  It was not the kind that had gladiators.  

Roman theater at Caunos

Castle way up there on top

Tutu dropped her handkerchief and had to go back to the theater to find it while Papa showed us the Roman baths and explained how it used to be.  There was a castle way up on top of a hill but we did not have time to walk up there.

A picture off the internet of the tombs that
were too far away for us to see very good

We were supposed to see some rock tombs but those were too far away up the river to see much.  The tour guide wanted more money to take us there but Tutu said no because she did not want to spend any more money on this tour and we also wanted to hurry and get back to the boat to leave.  There were huge loggerhead turtles in the marsh entrance that ate crabs.  None of us knew that turtles like to eat crabs.  

Pigging out picking crabs

Papa bought some cooked crabs and we later ate these on the boat.  I love steamed blue crabs!  These were boiled instead of steamed but they were still pretty good.


When we left again we changed plans ,and went to Mamaris and docked in the marina right in town.  We walked through the old bazaar and went to Papa's favorite place for lunch and ate chicken doner kebabs made by the Samarai Kebab Man.  That man is funny.  He has a really long knife that he uses to cut the chicken off the round thing.  Doner kebabs are chicken and lettuce and tomatoes wrapped in a big tortilla.  Tastes pretty good.  I like these better than the gyros we ate last summer in Greece.


We were squished in the 1st marina we went to,so we moved to Yat Marin. We are now so far away from the pool ,which is the main reason we came.       


That's all we've done lately so keep following and enjoy.

Cooling off in pool at Yat Marin