(Part 3) Traversing Turkey: Laodicea on the Lycus and Alien Travertines

- Dec. 24, 2019, Tuesday.

- On my third day in Turkey, the country felt a lot more "Grecian" than it was "Turkish" mainly because we had been visiting Greek cities in the Turkish Aegean coast. The only things reminding me that we were in Turkey were the Turkish flags that I would randomly see once in a while, the currency we were using, the food that we would eat, and the Turkish language I would hear everywhere (and at times, I had to respond in Turkish too.)

- We first visited Laodicea on the Lycus (the city was built on the Lycus River) in the province of Denizli, built in the 3rd century BC, and was destroyed during the invasions of Central Asian Turks and Mongols in the 1200s, around the time the Byzantine Empire fell, and the Ottoman Empire rose. This city has some well-preserved aqueducts, public baths, and Greek marble columns.

Laodicea.

With black marble pillars. This was something new because most marble pillars I've seen in ancient Greek and Roman cities were mostly made from white marble.

A marble carving of a boar.

White pillars.

Greece or Turkey?!

Preparing for battle? Haha.

- Personally, Laodicea appeared somewhat underwhelming especially after seeing Ephesus (see here), Greece's Acropolis (click here), and Italy's Pompeii (click here). The excavation sites were quite scattered, and the remaining buildings and pillars seemed fewer in number. However, the black-marble pillars were the ones that stood out since I find them rare.

It's a pretty corner.

Former church.

Pillars from a far away excavation site.

Ancient baths.

It was hard to identify some of these pillars since not all of them were labeled.

- After leaving Laodicea, we had a 15-minute drive to Hierapolis-Pamukkale. Hierapolis was the last of the "ancient Greek cities" that we visited in the trip, and was built in the 2nd century BC just like Laodicea on the Lycus, but was abandoned in the 14th century due to an earthquake. We had a quick look of Hierapolis before seeing the highlight of Denizli Province, the travertines of Pamukkale.

The ruins of Hierapolis.

This was quite far away, but would be an interesting place to explore if we had the time....or if it wasn't raining.

We couldn't go inside because the gate was locked.

- A travertine is a limestone formation that look like a series of pools arranged in a terrace, and normally contain water. The travertines of Pamukkale, located in the same place as Hierapolis, appear bright white, just as the whole mountain that has these pools, and so the locals have called this place "Pamukkale," which in English is translated to "Cotton Castle." Each pool contains natural clear hot-spring water, but due to sunlight, the water in each pool appears turquoise to sapphire blue. Visitors are allowed to dip their feet in the pools just as the ancient people did - after all, Hierapolis was also known for its natural hot-spring spa. To me, the whole place looked like it came from a different planet!!

The white limestone mountain and the blue lake at the foot of the mountain.

Too bad the water....I'm not sure if the water evaporated or froze.

Would've been nice to have turquoise/sapphire-colored water as my background haha.

The only part of the mountain where there was still hot-spring water.

- That evening, we stayed in a hot-spring hotel, just like many hotels in the area. Because of this, I was told that there are many local and international tourists who stay in Pamukkale for spa/wellness tourism. I kept forgetting that it was also Christmas Eve because of all the traveling, and instead of waiting for Christmas, I immediately slept the moment I laid on my bed. I had to save my energy as we had a lot more traveling to do on Christmas day! 

- Don't forget to read about my other adventures in Turkey:

Part 1, Troy and the Trojan Horse: here

Part 2, Virgin Mary's House and Ephesus: here

Part 4, Konya: here

Part 5, Cappadocia: here

Part 6, Istanbul's Royal Old Town: here

Part 7, Istanbul Between Continents: here

Part 8, Istanbul's Secrets: here

Part 9, Istanbul on New Year's Eve: here