Missing You!

Oh me oh my!! SORRY! I got side tracked - did a little trip to Kamloops, Halloween and Christmas - I seem to have left you all hanging. After our monumental trip back in time - the next day came early. We were picked up at Villa Konak at 7:00 a.m. for a trip to Pamukkale - meaning "cotton castle" in Turkish. When we were planning our trip to Turkey all the books and brochures had pictures of wonderful scenes with white? - could be snow? sand? what?

The trip from Kusadasi to Pamukale took over 3 hours. As mentioned before Kusadasi is on the coast and Pamukale is in the hills. We passed through cotton fields, orchards of olives and pomegranite. Our sense were bombarded with the colours of fields orange flowers. We passed through a few cities and small villages. One village we were told was a "bottle village" - they put bottles on the roofs of houses where there were single girls looking to marry. Men who were wanting to marry had to break the bottle to claim the right to marry the girl. We arrived at Pamukale around 11:00.

This beautiful place has been visited by tourists for thousands of years. Hot springs have been flowing down the hillside depositing calcite that creates the fabulous travertines and terraces. At the end of the 2nd century B.C. the dynasty of the Attalids, the kings of Pergamon, established the thermal spa of Hierapolis. The largest cemetary in the world is here - as people would come from all over to bath in these waters believing them to have healing powers.

We had a short tour of the ruins of the baths, temples and other Greek monuments and then spent the rest of the day walking in the warm waters of this marvel.

After spending the afternoon in the sun and the warm soft water we went for a wonderful late lunch. It was a buffet but they offered local wine yummy.

It was a long day all in all and when we got back to The Villa Konak we were greeted by our host who presented us with a bottle of wine and 3 glasses. We sat on the deck by the pool to savour the wine, the day and each others thoughts.