Advertisement
Published: January 16th 2010
We finally left Dalyan and started to head north towards Istanbul! After an amazing dolmus through the mountains we arrived in the small town of Pamukkale. Small town but pretty much a tourist town with the ruins Hieropolos nearby. While we were in Pamukkale we did another round of visiting ancient ruins! One of the most amazing and well preserved sites we have seen is Aphrodisias (check out some of the pics)...featuring the temple of Aphrodite (aka. goddess of love beauty and all that stuff). The site here had some amazingly well kept ruins including a very cool ampitheatre and amzing huge stadium! Apart from the cool ruins we also may have landed ourselves on Turkish TV after meeting an american guy who was with his crew filming a part of a television travel series!
Pamukkale is quite a well known tourist site in Turkey for its white limestone terraces...which almost look like its just snowed in this part of town...quite surreal! The area is also a natural hot spring...so there are many tourist pics of this now UNESCO site with people bathing in these gorgeous white baths with glittering turqoise water! We saw a bit of this but not
Pamukkale
white limestone slopethe tourist pics! The baths are quite amazing...and thy said they have to rotate the emptying of them to ensure they are maintained! Behind these limestone baths there is another historical site Hieropolous. The site is pretty big... there is a huge amazing ampithetre and they have also built a thermal pool using the natural springsn which has some collapsed columns in it! Here at Hieropolous we experienced one of the strangest methods of letting people know they should not be where they are...using a whistle! Instead of maybe roping an area off or some signs...they have people that blow a whistle till you leave the area you are not supposed to be in! We first got told this way when we reached the limestone and wanted to check it out! With no signs and no obvious way of accessing it we started to walk up the slope...as we had just reached some of the real areas of built up limestone we started to hear this whistle blowing which eventually stopped when we worked out it was for us and moved away! anyway we couldn't see anyone nearby so we figure it had come from at least 50m away!
Pamukkale
white terraces We spent another day checking out the local bazaar in Denizli...quite a big city close to Pamukkale. We explored some cool little parts and found a few cool things! Got some yummy lokum (turkish delight) and ate some yummy Pide at a small little shop with a very friendly owner who called up a mate of his who could speak French...so Jean got on the phone to this guys mate!
We had heard lots about Istanbul from various people with things like...the place sucks you in...and each time you go to Istanbul you can find a new interesting place you haven't been before! With these and many more lucious descriptions of this cultural gem of Turkey and the city where you physically see the seperation of Europe and Asia with the Bosphorus Sea...we were looking forward to seeing this city after such a beautiful few weeks in Turkey. We were greeted in this buzzing city by pouring rain and lots of it! We decided to hit the grand bazaar...which is the well known markets in Istanbul! After not spending time in a major city since probably Dubrovnik or Rome...our senses were treated with amazing colours with many beautiful colourful
lamp stores, amazingly rich carpets, posh and trendy leather shops and other shops selling cool handcrafts and random stuff! There was so much to look at and get lost in in the Grand Bazaar, the surrounding streets and the nearby Spice Market! Althought it was not tourist high season the markets were still pretty busy with lots of people everywhere and as well every shop owner trying to get us into their shops. The number of shop owners who spoke to me in Japanese...made me feel bad I could not answer back to them in the same language!
Another day we headed across to the newer part of the city...we crossed the Galatta bridge which is lined with locals just fishing off it...and tasted some delicious Balik Ekmek (fish sandwich). We witnessed the maddness of the street they called Ishtliker Caddesi (or Freedom street).... which is just packed with people 24/7...the streets are lined with trendy shops, cafes, restaurants etc. and the small off streets are filled with smaller shops and some cool areas which would be great to explore! The area was more packed in the late afternoon when we headed back through this street and we even
lost each other in the maddness!
We headed to the check out a Kurdish area not far from Ishtliker...a huge contrast to the trendy strip only a few streets away is a very hilly area filled with run down houses and flats with washing hanging above the street and piles of rubbish on the side of the road. Although such a contrast in look...this place had its own amazing energy and vibrancy...with many people in the streets talking to each other and just going about their everyday lives! We stopped and had a nice tea and yummy pastry treat a a little shop and watched as people walked by and saw 3 young boys, joyfully arm over arm as they walked down the street together, followed shortly after by a really old lady walking with her walking stick.
With the amazing historical and cultural richness in Istanbul we went to check out Topkapi...the palace of the sultans which was still in use until the end of 19th century. The palace is quite amazing...the Turkish version of Versaille I guess. We had been told the Harem was spectacular so we forked out the extra entance fee to see such
Aphrodisias
overview of the agora an amazingly rich and beautifully detailed ...
We also went that afternoon to see the Blue Mosque and spent some time inside this beautiful mosque and also got to see pray time!
anyway after a quick buzz of istanbul we travelled to the Asian side of Istanbul to hop on a plane back to Europe...back to Ploermel for Xmas!
en francais 😊 Snif snif snif il fallait qu'on le fasse et on la fait: quitter ce beau coin de dalyan!!! allez y sans dec' c'est vraiment trop beau!!!
Donc dans le bus vers pamukkale!!! d'abord on comprend pas tout et on pense que c'est le mauvais bus et la mauvaise route!!! mais pas grave les paysages sont super beaux!!! pratiquement personne dans le mini bus!!! a travers la montagne, les chutes d'eau d'1 cote et les sommets enneiges de l'autre!!! arret au milieu de nul part pour un the a la turk!!! marrant personne ne parle la meme langue!!! mais bon pas grave le the est bon!!! la nuit tombe et ca caille a fond!!! on change de bus, un gars checque notre ticket et ce marre!!! ca doit etre le bon bus alors!!! arrive
Aphrodisias
ampitheatre a Denizli vers 9pm!!! et la l'allucination totale!!! la pollution est partout!!! c'est comme si il y'avait du brouillard mais c'est pas du brouillard mais les fumees du charbon et des bagnoles!!!
Arrivee a pamukkale sous la pluie!!! il fait froid et il est tard!!! pas grave on a une adresse d'hotel!!! le meilleur de la ville!!! personne a la porte!!! bang bang bang une fillette nous ouvre les portes du sezame!!! ses parents reviennent plustard!!! alors on attend dans une petite piece decoree a la turque avec tapis et coussins et poile a bois!!! le reve, au chaud enfin!!! maman arrive et nous fait a manger!!! repas trad turc miam miam merci maman 😊!!! d'ailleurs si bon que tous les soir elle nous fait a manger!!! quelle chance hey!!!
Pamukkale c'est 2 choses!!!
- la premiere: c'est des concression de calcaire qui on fait des sortes de petites piscines sur plusieurs etages!!! un peu comme des cultures en terraces mais toute blanche!!! assez impressionant!!! on essaye d'y rentrer a l'arrache mais bon le monsieur nous siffle et nous gronde!!! maudits touristes hey 😊!!!
- la deusieme: Hieropolis une ancienne cite grecque et romaine payenne et chretienne!!! assez
impressionante aussi!!! surtout les thermes encore en action et l'amphitheatre en tres bonne etat!!! sous la pluie on ce balade avec une petite meute de chien comme companions de voyage!!! maintenant attention tout ce qui suit est la pure verite de vraie!!! on arrive donc dans la ruine d'une des premieres basilique au monde!!! elle fut construite a la place ou fut fait martire un des apotres du jesus!!! donc belles ruine!!! au detour d'1 pillier on tombe sur une femme aux ondes tres bizzards!!! les chien qui nous suivent, commencent a aboyer sur elle et lui montrent les crocs!!! elle me montre une tres vieille piece de monnaie!!! les chien deviennent tres menacants envers elles!!! l'atmosphere ce charge d'electricite!!! alors on part et les chien nous suivent comme pour nous proteger!!! je me retourne et hop y'a plus personne , cette etrange femme a disparue, volatilisee!!! elle etait un fantome aux mains chaudes ou bien elle etait reelle!!! je ne sais pas!!! nous etions tres pres de la necropole aussi!!! cela peut peut etre expliquer ceci!!!
visite de denizli et son bazzar(marche)!!! rencontre d'1 type excellent qui nous fait des pides au feu de bois!!! achat des cadeaux de
Aphrodisias
snow capped mountains noel!!! rencontre d'1 cordonnier gros fumeur aux doigts de fee!!! pas de touristes et c'est bien aussi!!! 😊
Bye bye pamukkale, bonjour Istanbul!!!OH OH OH!!! quelle belle ville!!! incroyable et tres ancienne!!! chargee de milliers reves et prieres!!! allah ouakbar!!!
Istanbul, le bosphore, sainte sophie, la mosquee bleue, le palais de topkapi, galatasarai, pierre loti ...ect!!! Enfin le meilleur moment: a l'interieur de la mosquee bleue avant et apres et pendant la priere 1heure de pure magie!!! merci l'islam et les batisseurs de mosquees!!!
Voila c'est presque noel!!! alors un petit retour en bretagne pour une belle surprise pour les parents!!!
ciao😊
Advertisement
Tot: 0.166s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 8; qc: 53; dbt: 0.0549s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
