Day 12 - Beautiful Pamukkale

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The next day, having no idea where the breakfast is supposed to be, we just went downstairs in order to ask at the reception. Well, it would have been useful to let us know that we could find breakfast on the 8^thfloor, maybe at the check-in…The huge Buffet was great. The only tourists in town, we made our way to the “Otogari” to find a Dolmuç towards Pamukkale. People in the streets were observing us, as they had never seen any white (as white as I am) tourist walking down this street. Well, maybe my short was a bit too short, I confess. What is more, we were wearing our lovely hats, so you can imagine what kind of look we had.



After a while, going round and round the “Otogari”, we found a dolmuç, which would bring us for 3.50 TL to Pamukkale city-centre.



From there, the “Guide du Routard” wrote that minibuses were going to “Aphrodisias”, everyday at 9:30. Indeed we found that bus and bought a ticket. We were told we would be back around 4p.m., which would be perfect time to go to Pamukkale and watch the sunset.



However, first, have a tea. Remember this if you once go to Turkey. After a while he came back to pick us up. But, our driver had only one seat left, so Vincent had to seat on a plastic chair all way long (Well, we did it half/half). For the inconvenience, the driver offered us the amount of the entrance fee for one person, so 15 TL, Which was more than ok for us, both students. “A la turque”, as we would say in French.



Aphrodisias was really worth it and we came back at a quarter past three, having much than enough time to visit the site. We paid the 25 TL entrance fee, including also the ancient city “Hiérapolis” and took our shoes off to climb on the limestone pool, called “travertines”.



I was a little disappointed because a lot of the travertines, the real ones, were left dry, without any water. We still don’t know today why.



After that long day, we were literally starving, but went first at the « Otogari » to book our bus transfer back to Izmir, where from we were going to fly back to Istanbul and fly then to Tiranä. Finally we made it to our hotel, "Napa Otel" and could enjoy a delicious diner at the 8^th floor restaurant. I had a soupe, Köfte (grilled meat), salad, rice, tomatoes and courgette yogurt and Vincent had a Biftek. For dessert (because we love dessert), we tried those delicious cakes, soaked in a very sweet liquid. The Whole diner only cost 45 TL. We were the only guests at this moment in the restaurant and also enjoy a polar-tv-serie… in turkish. How funny!

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