The travertines of Pammukale

The first view of Pammukale is not impressive, just an off white patch of limestone A little closer to it starts to look a bit more interesting

Before going onto climb to the

travertines one is asked' to take ones

shoes off. A local dog takes advantage

of the scrap of shade.

The word 'travertine' is not overused in the English language as there are not many of them about!! But the gentle flow of lime laden spring water down a hillside in Pammukale in western Turkey produces flat ridged ponds of calcium carbonate with spectacular effect as seen in the next two photographs.

Taken from different angles the travertines take on completely different shapes as shown next.

The hotel two miles away was also located on a hot spring - but instead of white limestone the deposits were ferrous based, leaving deep brown rust colouring as shown by the shot of Jacky fighting off the paparazzi (below left) and smeared with the muddy 'good for the skin' sediment spread across her face and collarbones. The next day we left to return to Istanbul and home