Aswell as submitting Sally to a boot camp of walking 6 miles a day we managed to see a number of sites on her visit and would highly recommend them. Three hours inland from Marmaris by car towards some impressive snowy mountains Pamukkale features some famous brilliant white travertine terraces. You walk up these terraces without your shoes and paddle in the pools of calcium carbonate caused by the hot springs. Its a strange feeling walking on cotton white (known as the cotton castle) rock thats not slippery. Then at the top of the slope lies the ancient ruins of Hierapolis including a hot spring pool within some ruins that Cleopatra was supposed to have bathed in; as well as over 1000 tombs and sarcophagi and the Martyrium where St Philip was crucified.
But our favourite were the close by ruins at Aphrodisias from 2nd Century BC. The ruins include one of the best preserved stadiums of its kind (with seating for 30,000 people) as well as an impressive Tetrapylon gate and Temple of Aphrodite. Plus some stunning sculpture and columned Agora. The ruins were cloaked in spring flowers with a backdrop of snow capped mountains. Definitely worth the trip.
Other than that we managed to see four wild tortoises, a snake, hundreds of frogs and two dolphins in the bay during Sally’s week. Louis is here now and running with me, Debbie and the South Africans on Monday.. the race is on (ha ha!!) then Jane arrives so will we get her running on Wednesday?
There are more and more boats being put in the water all the time at the moment, Martyn has built a fab new bathing platform on the back of the boat and we plan to say a sad farewell to our friends here in a couple of weeks.. so I will be up and blogging proper shortly...