Pamukkale

Pamukkale means "cotton castle," and the name is literal: mineral-rich water rises from underground springs at around 35°C, then cools as it spills down the slope, and as it cools it can no longer hold all the calcium carbonate dissolved in it. That mineral drops out of the water and hardens into travertine — layer after layer, century after century — building the roughly 2,700-meter run of white terraces and pools that give the hillside its color and shape.

The city built on top of it, Hierapolis, wasn't founded for the view. A shrine had stood on the site since at least the 7th century BC, and the Hellenistic king Eumenes II turned it into a proper spa town in the 2nd century BC on the strength of exactly what still draws people today: a belief that the thermal water cured what regular medicine couldn't. It worked well enough, or was believed to work well enough, that Hierapolis grew into a city of roughly 100,000 people, survived a devastating earthquake under the emperor Nero in 60 CE, and was rebuilt as a fully Roman city afterward.

Its deepest significance, though, is Christian rather than medicinal. The apostle Philip is said to have been martyred here — crucified around 80 CE — and in the 4th century a monumental martyrium was built on the traditional site of his death, turning what had been a resort town into one of the more important pilgrimage sites of the early Christian world.

Good to know

Hierapolis and the Pamukkale travertines are listed together as a single UNESCO World Heritage Site — the ancient city and the geology are protected as one place, not two separate stops.

Best time to visit

Early morning or the couple of hours before sunset bring softer light on the white terraces, cooler temperatures for walking barefoot across them (shoes aren't allowed on the travertine itself), and noticeably thinner crowds than midday, especially in summer.

Getting there

15 km from Merkezefendi. Çardak Airport (DNZ) is about 53 km away.