Have you seen incredible pictures of the immaculate white basins overflowing with clear water, where people were happily bathing in white mud that was too good for their skin? Well, that’s the vision sold by travel agencies, because Pamukkale isn’t like that anymore:

Day 1 :

After a day in Selçuk / Ephesus, we take the bus at 4:30 pm with the company Pamukkale Turizm (40TL/person). 3h30 later, having witnessed an exceptional sunset from the bus, we finally arrive in Denizli. We are all transferred in a mini bus. In haste and incomprehension (nobody warned us in Selçuk that there was a change of bus), one of the travelers forgot his large suitcase in the big bus. Thus starts a chase and exchange in walkie-talkie to find the big bus, and the suitcase. But all is well that ends well. They must have been used to it because the driver insists really a lot on the luggage, until asking twice to each of us if we have luggage.

Arrived in Pamukkale, we are welcomed in the office of the agency under the pretext of giving us a free map, but it is mainly to try to sell us tours. We get out quite quickly after having asked questions about tours and rates then walk to our hotel, spotted and booked a few hours earlier (we are in “we don’t plan anything” mode this weekend). We dine quickly then sleep.

Day 2 :

Today, after a copious but not very good lunch at the hotel, we discover from the terrace a hot air balloon flying over Pamukkale. So the site (or the cliff), by far, does not look like my imagination. And on the spot I couldn’t understand what this white block in front of our eyes corresponded to. What I know is that all this white already dazzles me, and I’m not going to get by without the sunglasses I forgot in Istanbul. I quickly buy a pair of cheap glasses (25TL) before starting the tour.



We walk a few minutes to one of the three entrances of the site, called “entrance from the village” because it is the closest entrance to the village and does not require a means of locomotion. Don’t worry, I will write you a practical guide and make a diagram.

We don’t know it yet, but it will be the entrance we’ll be the hardest to get through. 50TL/person entrance fee later, we enter the site, too happy. Quickly, we have to take off our shoes so as not to damage the site. That goes up and the ground is rather sharp, it is necessary to be careful where we put the feet. I should have come with an extra pair of socks.





This path would have been created in the 70s, to access the hotels that were on top of the site (now destroyed). In 50 years, nature has had time to regain the upper hand. The ground is covered with the limestone contained in the water and one would almost think that all these basins along the path were made by nature.

The walls “cloud”, “cotton” style are authentic eh. It’s really too beautiful!



Note: all the basins on this path are lined with concrete, then the limestone deposit opened the whole, making the whole very harmonious. As it is man-made, you are allowed to wade in it (but not the natural basins that you will see, are round shaped). The vase at the bottom can be used to make a mask for the face.



It’s 10:30 a.m. but the organized tours seem to prefer wading in the basins above. At first, we thought they were lazy and afraid of hurting their feet. Then, while going up, we notice that the ‘pools’ at the top have hot water while the water in the bottom one is icy. Anyway, this is good news because my bare feet are starting to freeze. I remind you that it’s 10 degrees. Even with the sun, my feet are suffering.

Obviously, the hotter the water, the more people. I don’t know if all these people are happy to wade into something fake? Generation Instagram hello!


I say to JB: let’s go and get more authentic basins. We go along a path made out of wood on our left to arrive at a viewpoint that we saw on all the tourist brochures. Yes it is well the same place but we fall from high.

All basins are empty. Not a single drop of water.

What we saw:



What we thought we’d see:



We panic a little, and we ask ourselves thousands of questions. What happened? Where did we screw up? JB googles “pamukkale no water” and comes across hundreds of reviews and articles from angry tourists, feeling betrayed and sad to have come all the way here. The explanations are all the same: it’s to preserve the basins from algae and mosses. They cannot be filled permanently.

But when are they filled then?

I speak to a babysitter and as she doesn’t speak English very well, I don’t know if she tells me that it will be full in summer (summer) or this Sunday (sunday). This conversation will stay in my head for three days, so disgusted am I by the lack of water in Pamukkale.

I am torn by anger and compassion. If they had, only at the entrance, clearly explained the why and how of the lack of water, I would have been disgusted but not angry. They are right to protect the site, it even conditions their right to be a UNESCO protected site. But here we are, a minimum of communication wouldn’t hurt anyone. Some tourists come to Turkey mainly for this place.

As well as the access or not to the basins. How can we let people access certain basins (made of concrete, of course, you can’t tell that they are made of concrete) and forbid access to other basins (most of them just have a distant sign, not always translated into English, no ropes to prevent access). A casual tourist, who has seen the old photos of the site, wouldn’t have noticed that the rules of the game have changed. They would have had to print the rules on the entrance ticket or, at the very least, post it at all the entrances to the site.

In short, disgusted, we go around the basins to confirm that no natural basin is filled.

One can, however, take advantage of the infrastructures put in place to soak his feet (note the mountains in the background, magnificent!!!)



Then one remembers that Pamukkale, it is also an ancient city. It was built 2000 years ago precisely to welcome the sick people who came to be healed by the miraculous and healing water of Pamukkale.

We go up the hill to the amphitheater. The sight of this magnificent amphitheater is enough to soothe me. Contrary to the one in Ephesus visited the day before, we cannot go down to the bottom. But the view is already super satisfying, with the mountain ranges in the distance. The central part has been well renovated because at the beginning, it was just a heap of ruins.



As we have nothing else to do, we even go up to the martyrium of Saint Philip, who was crucified there, although we aren’t sure that his tomb is here. It is also an important place of pilgrimage.



We still walk to the agora, the center of this ancient city. There are also only ruins left, but it is a popular place for wedding pictures.



We walk to the northern entrance of the site to discover the necropolis (hundreds of massive tombs). This walk has finally only an average interest but we were able to find an additional tip for any visitor of Pamukkale. We will tell you about it later.

We walk in the opposite direction (it must be an hour of walking under the sun in total) to build up our legs and spend the fat accumulated since we travel to countries where we eat too well.

A look at the basins. Always dry.



I calm down a bit and tell myself that all these efforts have not been in vain. In all the places where the water is flowing (the foot basin or the water conveyance system), you can see the presence of algae. By comparing the before/after pictures, it is clear that all these efforts have paid off: the basins are white white white and aren’t half green, half orange as before. Between whiteness and water, one must choose 😀



We decide to have lunch at theAntique Pool, the ancient pool also called “Cleopatra’s Pool” (she would have brought water from Pamukkale, or bathed herself in it, who cares). There is a huge fast food restaurant so the entrance is free. But if you want to swim, it costs 50TL extra per person, and even the locker isn’t free. The pool looks nice on the tourist brochures, with pieces of antique columns at the bottom of the pool (actually, it’s a real antique pool with columns around it and a roof, but after the earthquakes, the columns fell… in the pool, and they left it as it is). But it is shallow (1 meter). The deep part is smaller, the water is warmer but it is, on the contrary, extremely deep (about 3 meters). The water is warm (35°C), but not super clean either. Frankly, if we had other things to do, we wouldn’t have spent time here. The food isn’t extraordinary either. Ohlala! I hear some French people grumbling: “besides, at this price, we don’t even have the right to take pictures”. There you go!

We spend the rest of the afternoon wandering around the site, thinking. As there isn’t much to do in the surroundings, we have already booked our plane ticket and we still have to stay 2 more days here, we feel a little bit trapped. We wonder if we prefer to come back here in summer because the rumours say that in summer, the basins will be full. Or we decide to visit an equivalent site in another country? And then we sincerely wonder why we are so disgusted as that, because anyway, contrary to many other tourists, we have much more time, more vacations… in addition to having moved only from Istanbul. I still don’t have the answer, I think I’m basically someone who hates injustice above all else. That’s why this story is working for me.

We wait for the sunset at the top of the site, at the level of large basins. Seeing the whiteness and the beauty of the basins here allows us to relativize, it’s still beautiful, even without water.



We go down slowly, taking the path taken this morning, barefoot. The region has the advantage of having splendid sunsets. The sun hiding a huge mountain range creates incredible lights, reflecting gently on the white wall of the “cotton castle”. It is magnificent! My feet hurt, but I am soothed. There are still quite a few people on the site, some even come after sunset (the site is open until 9pm/22pm, depending on the entrance).

note: the photo below was taken while zooming in. We can’t be that close to these “waterfall” style basins. I specify because I have often been disappointed by the professional photos of hihihi travel bloggers who often tend to over-sell reality.

Day 3: Laodicea and Karahayıt

As we are out of season, we cannot do the tour Laodicea – Lake Salda etc.. But the owner of the hotel encourages us to take a dolmus to go to Laodicea ourselves. Having tested the dolmus (local mini-bus) the day before in Selçuk, we feel quite capable of doing the same thing again. We do the check-out, take all our stuff (we only have two small backpacks). Meeting at the main square of the village. We speak to a gentleman who seems to master the subject. Indeed, he has a walkie-talkie and tells us that a dolmus is coming soon, we have to take the one in the direction of Denizli. He hails it for us. Thank you sir! About ten minutes later, we arrive at Laodicea, and JB pays 3,5TL/person to the driver.

Laodicea was one of the most important ancient cities of the zone thanks to the export of its textile products. There is also the last of the 7 churches of the Apocalypse (partially renovated) and two huge amphitheaters that are currently being renovated.

We aren’t dropped off in front of the antique site, but on the side of the road (which has a sidewalk, don’t worry). And we walk 20 minutes to the site, time to find a restaurant on the way. JB blames me that we left in such a hurry, on an empty stomach, because there isn’thing to eat in the area, except a restaurant not yet open, and a café on the site, just selling poor mini cakes and tea/coffee.

Well, the interest of the site is very average, but we have to keep busy during the two remaining days. The entrance costs only 15TL/person. The surprise, it is that there are very few tourists, and it is also the discovery of one of the 7 churches of the Apocalypse on the spot (we visited one of them hardly 2 days ago), and two enormous amphitheaters in the course of renovation. This gives us an idea of the state of the amphitheaters before renovation vs. those that have been renovated (and visited in Ephesus and Pamukkale). The site is hilly so you really have to walk, look everywhere otherwise you might miss the church and the two antique amphitheaters completely







We walk back in the opposite direction and have breakfast at the restaurant spotted this morning. The owner offers us just two choices: lamb or chicken (at least that’s what we understood 🙂 ). We choose the lamb, thinking to have an entrecote. In fact, he serves us excellent lamb skewers on the barbecue, with a fresh salad and pita. It’s delicious, for 100TL for two, drinks included. What a great discovery! It feels good, especially since we have been eating very badly since the beginning of our weekend.



You wait on the sidewalk, in the direction of the city you want to go(Karahayıt). We wonder how we can stop a dolmus because here, there is no one left to help us. Finally, it was very easy, we stopped a bad dolmus, the driver made us signal to wait for the next one, and he had to warn via walkie-talkie to his colleague. Because a few minutes later, a dolmus calls us from a lighthouse to let us know that he is the right one for us: Moreover, there is a sign indicating that he goes to Karahayıt as well.

We are dropped off at the entrance of the village. This village proudly displays a huge fountain at the roundabout. We are warned! The thermal water here is hot, very hot, and contains iron, hence the iron deposits on this fountain.



We cross a very nice and local market before going to our Doga Termal hotel. We are only 6km from Pamukkale. Most of the tourist buses stop in this city for the night because Pamukkale does not have adapted infrastructures for groups. This is also an attempt to increase thermal tourism. If Pamukkale is known for its healing water source loaded with limestone, Karahayit also has travertines and springs. Its thermal water is loaded with iron, the water is almost red and its springs are called “red springs”. They are used to cure other illnesses 🙂

Most of the hotels here offer thermal water pools (which visually do not make you feel like it) but once inside, you appreciate that the water is at 40 degrees.

We take a lot of time to find the local thermal swimming pool Kirzimi Su, with travertines filled with water this time :When we arrived there, I don’t know if we got the wrong place, but nobody swims there, the entrance is free, you can dive your feet for free. The spring water is super hot (it can reach 60°C).



We return to our hotel and enjoy its many thermal pools (outdoor and indoor), Turkish baths, saunas, hammam etc… I don’t know if its water is really healing but in any case, it feels good to bathe in such hot water (40°C).

Day 4: Pamukkale and its travertines

For a bunch of coincidences, the alignment of planets and also the help of the universe, we suddenly decide to spend our last day in Pamukkale. It’s Sunday and as the conversation with the janitor on the 2nd day is still going on in my head (she may have said “sunday” and not “summer”), we go back to the travertines. So much the worse if we have to pay the entrance fee again. We wanted to pay a cab but none is there. We opt for the dolmus solution. While taking the dolmus from Laodicea to here, we noticed that it also stopped at the North entrance of the site of Pamukkale.

We signal the driver to stop there. We pay 50TL/person for the entrance. And thanks to our long walk on the 2nd day, we learned that there was a shuttle inside the site, allowing us to enter North => antique pool. This will save us 30 minutes of walk, for only 5TL/person. Since the antique pool, we make an inspection of the basins. Always empty. I think that JB, even from behind, manages well to make us understand the feeling of helplessness, looking at the emptiness, waiting for something that will never happen.



Until we reach the upper basins, not far from the south entrance.

I heard the sound of water.

I saw the taps fully open.

And bolsters filled with water.

I ran, my heart filled with joy. We made it! We are really going to see travertines filled with water.



The valves must have been opened recently since a large part of the basins aren’t yet filled. We stand there for more than an hour waiting for all the basins in front of us to be filled.

I think that only tourists who have seen empty basins for a whole day can understand my joy. Those who are here for the day don’t realize how lucky they are to have basins overflowing with water like this.
A French-speaking family is grumbling about not being able to bathe in the “blue part that makes you want to” but only in the grey concrete part (at the top of the basins, the concrete part isn’t yet white). Like that, when you take things for granted, you don’t know how to appreciate your luck anymore.
Like me for the last 2 days, I’ve been bitching about the lack of water, but I took the whiteness of the basins for granted. Whereas a few years ago, there was plenty of water, and tourists complained about the color of the basins. #never satisfied

This smile is the smile of VICTORY. Victory of patience, perseverance, but also of luck.







After a long moment of admiration, burned by the sun, we finally decide to go down to the village. We go out following the wooden path, direction the South entrance. Last nice view on the travertines from below.



From this entrance, there is no dolmus, but the guard of the carpark proposes to call a cab for us (it is too nice because there is no cab available here either). The ride costs 30TL, fixed price according to the driver, he won’t put a meter, that’s the rate, he says but he can drop us off anywhere in the village. It’s very expensive, but after the euphoria that we have to see the ferries filled, we don’t care a little bit to pay more.

We go to the Turkish Travel agency to book a shuttle to the airport. We have lunch and then around 20h, we land in Istanbul. A good night awaits us, for a new very busy week.

Part 2: Practical Tips

Budget

• Bus Selçuk => Pamukkale : 40TL/person with the company Pamukkale Turizm
• Dolmus (local mini-bus) :

  • Pamukkale => North entrance to Pamukkale site: 3.5TL/person
  • Karahayit => North entrance of Pamukkale site: 2.5TL/person
  • Pamukkale => Karahayit: 3TL/person
  • Pamukkale => Laodicea: 3,5TL/person
  • Laodicea => Karahayit: 4TL/person

• Cab : 30TL Pamukkale village => South entrance of the site
• Shuttle inside Pamukkale City:

  • 5TL/person from the north entrance => antique pool
  • 6TL/person: antique pool => amphitheater (we can do it on foot but if you are lazy, it is possible to do it by shuttle)
  • 10TL/person: amphitheater => martyrium

• Hotel :

  • in Pamukkale: HOTEL ALIDA PAMUKKALE (Booking link) 158TL/double room with heating/air conditioning, breakfast included. I recommend
  • in Karahayit : Doga Thermal Health & Spa ( Booking link ) 451TL/double room, very luxurious, many thermal pools, Turkish bath, sauna etc. Breakfast included. I recommend.

• Meal: about 50TL/person/meal
• Entry :

  • pamukkale site: 50TL/person
  • entrance to the pool (Antique Pool): 50TL/additional person
  • entrance to the Laodicée site: 15TL/person
  • Kirzimi Su (Karahayit): free of charge

• Shuttle to Denizli airport: 40TL/person/go

TOTAL : 908TL per person (excluding airfare from/to Istanbul) or 144€/person for 3 nights, 4 days
Count at least 40€ to 50€ per person per round trip by plane from Istanbul in addition

Detailed site map

Check out Pamukkale’s how-to guide here, here is the detailed site map (made by myself) and the commented Google Maps map