For our longer family vacation this year, we were planning to visit Capetown, South Africa, but due to COVID the flights between there and Turkey were suspended just a few weeks before our trip, so we had to come up with a plan B. We are very thankful to be living in a country with so much to offer (much more than we ever realized), so we decided to take advantage of it and we planned two driving trips to explore Turkey. The first trip we took was of western Turkey. We traveled around this part of the country for 8 days, covering 1903 kilometers/1182.5 miles.
The first day we left Ankara early in the morning and drove about five and half hours to the province of Denizli, to visit the sites of Hierapolis and Pamukkale. It was a cold, rainy, and snowy drive, but we made the best of it and explored in the rain.
Hierapolis, which means ‘Holy City,’ is an Ancient Greek city built on top of the hot springs of Pamukkale. It’s a small city with some sparse ruins from the 2nd century that you pass through on the way to Pamukkale.
This reminded me of visiting Megiddo in Israel.
Since the weather was not favorable and we wanted to get to Pamukkale, we did not explore the entire site.
Running through the ruins are the natural hot springs that feed into the travertines and thermal pools of Pamukkale.
Pamukkale means ‘cotton castle’ in Turkish. It is called that because of the carbonate minerals left behind from the flowing hot spring water, which makes this landform white.
The water was so warm and felt great in the mid-thirty degree rainy/sleety weather.
Afterwards, we got hot noodle soup to warm up.
Walking back to the car. It was a pretty site, despite the rainy day.
Our hotel was a little boutique hotel close to the site.
The kids loved playing with the resident puppies, especially Benjamin.
The next day we drove about two and a half hours to Izmir province to visit the ancient city of Ephesus. Ephesus was a city in Ancient Greece believed to be built around 1000 BC. Ephesus was a very important city in early Christianity. From about 52-54 AD, the apostle Paul lived in Ephesus. Between 53 and 57 AD Paul wrote the letter 1 Corinthians from Ephesus, and later wrote the Epistle to the Ephesians while he was imprisioned in Rome. Ephesus is one of the seven churches in the Book of Revelation, and it is believed the Gospel of John may have been written there around 90-100 AD.
During the Classical Greek era it was one of twelve cities that were members of the Ionian League, and it came under Roman control in 129 BC, then the Byzantines, Seljuks, and the Ottomans. The city was partially destroyed by an earthquake in 614 AD, and as rebuilt a couple times. In 2015, it was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The site is tucked away in the mountains in a beautiful, lush area.
There were several Roman roads still well in tact, and the columns are made of marble. These pictures are not in order, and we only stayed for a couple of hours so we didn’t get to explore the entire site.
I loved the archways leading to the Roman roads.
I thought these marble slabs were pretty. Their form of hanging pictures :).
Benjamin in deep meditation.
Back on the Roman road.
I think this was the Temple of Hadrian.
There were cats all over the sight.
This was a mosaic floors from a terrace house, which is where the wealthy people lived during the Roman period.
Love our 3 explorers.
After leaving Ephesus, we drove about 30 minutes to Kuşadası, which is a coastal city and major port for cruise ships, and it was set up tourists. Our hotel was on the Aegean Sea and we had a gorgeous view of the water, but it was much too cold to swim!
That evening, we walked down to the Marina and harbor areas. Lots of touristy shops and restaurants.
Look who found a dog to play with!
The next morning we went to the Kuşadası Castle, which is on Pigeon Island, a small island connected to the mainland. The castle was constructed between 1478 - 1546, and it was built to prevent an attack from the Greeks. There was not a lot of information about the castle, but it was a well in tact and fun to explore.
The castle seemed to have a resident dog that the kids enjoyed playing with. He followed them around for a while, but seemed pretty determined to keep watch of people coming in.
View of mainland Kuşadası from the castle.
Leaving the island, Benjamin was so happy when he came across all these dogs to play with!
Do you see the big smoke cloud in the distance? That is the market area we just came from. We checked the news and apparently a home caught on fire due to a gas leak.
