Ever wanted to visit a place that looks like its out of a fairy tale.  Then this is the place!  The Pamukkale Terraces or “The Cotton Castle” are the only ones like it in the whole world!  (I googled that by the way) .  They are formed from calcium int he water that slowly builds up over many thousands of years to form these beautiful terraces.   Of course i’m not an expert tho and you can read more here on Wikipedia 

Apparently 2 million people a year visit these terraces and I’m very surprised at that number.  There doesn’t seem to be that much infrastructure around to house that many people and i’m not sure how it works.  When I was there in December 2016 it was very quiet as was everywhere else we went in Turkey.   With all the recent problems people are avoiding turkey these days.

 

 

Getting There

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Bus

My friends and I caught a bus from Fethiye, it cost us 30 Turkish Lira 8 Euro and takes about 4-5 hours.

Most busses go to Denizli and they put you on a shuttle for the last 20 minutes to Pamukkale town.

If you go with the local company Metro they make you stop at the information centre before they will drop you to your hotel.  Don’t be fooled by this, you don’t need to buy an expensive tour!  Just take a map and ask them to take you to you accommodation!

Plane

The closest Airport is the Denizli just a 50 minute shuttle ride away and you can take flights there from Istanbul and some other locations.

Its a very small airport that only has a few flights a day.

Where to Stay

We stayed in Melrose Viewpoint Hotel and it was very nice.  The only problem was no guest/friends were aloud upstairs in the rooms which was a bit strange.

There’s lots of other hostels and hotels around you can stay in.  

I always use Booking.com to book my accommodation.

How long to Stay??

We stayed 2 nights and spent one full day exploring the Pamukkale Terraces and that was the right amount of time.  There isn’t anything else to do in the area so you don’t need to stay longer.

 

Visiting the Terraces

 

Just go to the gates an there you can buy tickets.  One person is 35 Lira, or 10 Euro.   This is just to get into the area and once inside there’s other costs if you want to see museums or hot pools.

Hot pools are 30 Lira, 8 Euro but very worth it when its cold!

There’s 2 gates.  One at the top and one at the bottom.  To get to the top gate you have to take a shuttle or taxi but its the most convenient for accessing the hot pools and the view points at the top of the terraces.

If you go in the bottom gate you have to walk barefoot for about 40 minutes up the middle of the terraces to the top.  We were there in winter  so this was VERY cold on the feet.

 

The Hot Pools

The hot pools was probably my favorite because it was bitterly cold that day.

If you randomly have a mask in your backpack i recommend taking it so you can dive under the water in the deep part of the pool.  Its super awesome and not what you expect!

 

 

The Stadium 

One of my favorite places we saw was the old stadium just above the hot pools on the hill.  It has been put back together a lot so that you can really appreciate how huge it is!  I want to go to see a DJ playing on this stage, it would be epic haha!

 

The Pamukkale Terraces were somewhere I had wanted to visit for along time and I really enjoyed it!  My highlight was probably diving around in the hot pools!