Pamukkale, Turkey

10.1.12
Wow, five weeks have flown by! Yesterday Tom and I each seemed to reach the "time to go home soon" point at about the same time. We didn't talk about much of anything to do with home for weeks and suddenly our thoughts seemed to have turned that direction... Work, baby showers, weddings, work...

However, we still have three days left here to stuff with more fun! We had an absolutely amazing day yesterday. We arrived from the overnight bus at about 7 am. We went straight to our hotel where we enjoyed their amazing breakfast while we waited for our room to be ready. This homey hotel is run by a friendly and generous family who serve a SPREAD for breakfast. The usual cucumbers, tomatoes and cheeses. Three types of olives (how will I survive with out my 1/2 lb of olives for breakfast every morning???), fresh fruit, three types of homemade jam, breads, cakes, French toast, hard boiled eggs, a selection of cereals,fresh honey, coffee, tea, juices.... Yum. After that breakfast, (and a difficult night on the bus) we needed a rest. Tom took a nap while I hung out by the pool. Mehmet (the owner) gave us a shuttle ride to Heiropolis (ancient Roman ruins, sacred pool and famous travertines) at 2:30. This was the time they recommended as best to avoid the biggest crush of tourists and some of the heat of the day. We meandered through the ruins for a while (good gravy it was HOT), and then headed to the sacred pool which was the spiritual center of Heiropolis, the Temple of Apollo. The pool contains some of the fallen marble columns, plinths, and capitols from the temple. What you have is a bath water warm, calcium laden mineral pool, littered with these bits of Roman architecture, and people swim around and play on them!!! Seriously, how cool is that? As soon as I read about this place while doing my Turkey research, I knew it was jumping right to the top of my " bucket list". Getting to put that on my list and then check it right off was awesome! Really one of those once in a lifetime experiences. After the pool we went straight to the travertines. The travertines are formed by lava heated water (way below the Earth's surface) full of pure white calcium rising to the surface and running down the hillside. This cascading water deposits the calcium and forms these travertines and mineral pools, all of which you can walk on as you head downhill. Amazingly beautiful, and a whole lot of fun, and let's talk about the photo opportunity!!! Mother Nature is pretty amazing!!!

We are relaxing after another wonderful breakfast, but soon it will be time to head to the bus station to catch a bus to a town called Selcuk where we will see the most famous Roman ruins in Turkey, Ephesus. I am hoping for a trip to the beach for a dip in the Aegean while we are there, and then it's back to Istanbul for an overnight before we board our plane home. (insert really sad face here).

I will post pictures as soon as I can. I have run in to problems with that this trip and haven't found a good solution yet. One of the problems is sizing them appropriately for this blog so that important things aren't getting cut off when I post a horizontal picture. Technology.... Love it/hate it!