Pamukkale Travertines

Pamukkale, which translates as cotton castle, is a set of white travertine terraces on a slope about three kilometres long and up to a hundred and sixty metres high. They are formed by the water of seventeen hot springs with temperatures from thirty-five to almost a hundred degrees: it is saturated with calcium bicarbonate, and when it reaches the surface the carbon dioxide escapes while the carbonate settles as a crust. The layer builds up slowly, about a millimetre a year, but over the millennia it has accumulated into a whole system of basins with rims that descend in steps. The colour ranges from snow white on fresh deposits to ochre where the crust is old and dry. In the middle of the 20th century hotels were built on the plateau and a road was laid across it, because of which part of the terraces dried out. In 1988 the site was added to the UNESCO list together with Hierapolis, the hotels were demolished, and the water supply is now regulated, filling the different cascades in turn. Walking on the travertines is allowed only barefoot and along a marked path. At the upper edge of the plateau the water collects in a warm pool with fragments of ancient columns on the bottom.

On the map