Pamukkale or Cotton Castle or sometimes known as Calcium Terraces was one if the nicest natural phenomenon that I’ve seen…well thinking about maybe the only one besides that beach where Captain Cook landed in Australia. The terraces are all white and from far it looked like mountains covered with snow. We alighted at the base of the terraces to take some pictures. It was cold and it I think it was probably about eight degrees Celsius. These terraces were created by deposits of white limestone from thermal springs.
We went up to the terraces and it was even colder. The flowers and leaves were covered with ice so it must have been at least zero degrees Celsius.
It was beautiful and I couldn’t remember the last time I’ve seen so much nature colours. It was green, sky blue, white and the clouds were fluffy. There was the sun but I didn’t feel any of it. All I felt were the cool air and the smoky breath coming out from my mouth was an indication that the sun was almost non-existent.
Just look at the blue blue sky...
After Pamukkale we had a three hours drive towards to our main destination, Selçuk or otherwise known as Ephesus. Ephesus was an ancient Roman city and was captured by the Kimmers in the 7th Century B.C., by the Lydians in 560, and later in 546 B.C., by the Persians.
The ruins of Ephesus are situated near Selçuk, town at 70km south of Izmir. One of the nicest buildings was the Library of Celsius (with the four pillars which means Wisdom, Friendship, Justice and Virtue) and the Temple of Hadrian plus prolly the Grand Theatre (where Huseyin sang a song for us). I shall let pictures tell you the story of how beautiful Roman cities were. I wonder if Troy was far from where we were.
Library of Celsius
Temple of Hadrian
The Grand Theatre
Before we were driven to the hotel, we were taken to a place to buy authentic Turkish delight and other Turkish goodies. Effa and I shopped quite a lot buying for our relatives. Turkish delight actually tastes good. It may be sweet but they are nice to eat.
We spent the night was Kusadasi Tatlises Hotel and were told that we had to leave the hotel 630AM for the five hours drive to Bursa. Huseyin said that we have to leave early so that it’ll be lunch time when we reach Bursa. He said that if we leave any later it’ll be dinner.
