Me and the town of Selçuk
I’ve been having a very difficult time mustering the energy to write about the next couple stops on my holiday travel adventure because last week was a mother. In fact, I spent just about all of yesterday sleeping and doing nothing for the sake of recovery. While I’m tempted to do that again today and complete my second consecutive unproductive weekend, I instead am forcing myself to write.
Selçuk
Courtney at the ruins of St. Jean's church, looking over Selçuk
The town of Selçuk is small and quaint, and the number of people one could expect to speak English is far lower than Istanbul. This is the first city in Turkey I’d ever been to outside of Istanbul, actually, and I was interested in how different I’d find it. In general the biggest difference was that I was no longer in a gigantic city and instead in a country town with one or two main streets that last a few blocks each. Plus orange trees grew along all the streets. I picked one and tried to eat it but it was much to sour. Still, I liked that the trees bore fruit.
Orange trees in Selçuk. Courtney took this picture.
We stayed in the Var Dar Pansyon, a cute family-run place close to the city center, though it was too cold. The cute 8-year-old granddaughter spoke better than the elderly couple who seemed to run the place – we used our combined language skills to find out the internet password. It was also here we discovered something useful: lots of Turkish internet passwords are either 1122334455 or 0123456789, or some slight variation on this. Now you have the knowledge to hack into most Turkish wireless networks. This skill came in handy at least once during the trip. Later we met the mother, who was very helpful and spoke English very well. In the morning we took off our shoes and had breakfast (bread with honey, cucumber, cheese, and tea) in their living room with the other guests.
Entrance to St. Jean's Church
Selçuk is home of the Saint John (“St. Jean” on the signs) church ruins. Courtney knows more about the theology of the place than I do, but here goes: while it’s not where St. “Jean” was to have died but where he was last seen. Apparently there was a blaze of light and when it disappeared it had taken Jean with it. Or so I remember… angry comments correcting my inaccuracy are welcome. For me, the place was gigantic and fun to explore, especially since no one cares in Turkey if you touch or climb all over the ruins (Courtney really got into this aspect and ran her fingers over almost anything of interest, even in museums sometimes). It was a great place to play hide and seek, which is exactly what
Jean wanted, I’m sure. Outside people tried to sell us old coins wherever we went. I guess that’s the hip thing to buy in Selçuk.
Also very popular in Selçuk/Efes are genuine fake watches. Who woulda thunk.
There’s also a fortress on top of the hill in Selçuk, but it was closed and very hard to get a picture of. Plus I have no idea what its historical purpose was.
The best picture of the fortress I could manage
There was also a moderately famous and very old mosque, a double domed thing with a huge courtyard. The courtyard was more interesting than the mosque itself. I don’t know its name or why it was important, which shows how much of an impression it left on me.
The Mosque
The courtyard in the mosque
While there was a lot to love about Selçuk, and there was a lot we didn’t have time to see (the archeological museum, the different grottos, etc.), the best thing by far was a restaurant we ate at twice, called Firuze. Some great things about this restaurant: 1) Sometimes restaurants name their dishes “Imam’s favorite” if the Imam likes that dish the most. In Selçuk, the Imam’s favorite was a patlican dolma (stuffed eggplant), which we had tried in Istanbul and could not forget. For me, dolma is a cue word for “delicious.” 2) The Iskender Kabab (named for Alexander the Great) was the best of its kind I’ve ever had and one of those dishes you just don’t forget. 3) While the family who worked there had almost no knowledge of English and the clientele was entirely locals, they still treated us well and loved that I spoke Turkish with them. They recognized us the second night we came in. 4) It’s open until midnight every day and the prices were completely in our limited range. So if you’re ever in Selçuk, go there. In a different day we met some Americans and had a late dinner with them in the restaurant they swore by with some of their travel buddies and a guy I remembered seeing at Pamukkale. It was late and they were out of most things, so I shouldn’t judge too harshly, but Firuze was head and shoulders above it (though the guy who ran the other restaurant spoke English very well).
Efes
Courtney at the famous library of Efes
The main tourist attraction of Selçuk is that it’s in walking distance from Efes, a very well preserved ancient city that is one of Turkey’s historical treasures – if you see photo montages of Turkey travel attractions, the library at Efes is almost always featured prominently. The city of Efes used to be a very prosperous port city, which is baffling to think of now because it’s nowhere near the sea. There’s a harbor that now leads to wilderness. The city is so well preserved because it didn’t fall to conquerors but instead to nature; as the sea receded the city was no longer important as a port city and became abandoned. Now there are two very cool amphitheaters, a gate built for Hadrian’s visit, the long main street, the ancient harbor, and the gigantic and beautiful library. And we’re allowed to climb all over the place.
Hadrian's arch in Efes. You know, I've seen two arches built for Hadrian and I still have no idea who the guy was.
On the walk to get to Efes, there’s an ancient temple to Artemis beside the road, almost completely lost to ruins besides the rough foundation and one impressive column with a bird’s nest on it. In Selçuk Courtney inadvertently picked up another guide dog who led us to the temple, where it left us for a Chinese tour group. Also on the walk to Efes we played around a little on an outdoor gym which offers no resistance. We have no idea how people think they’re getting exercise on those things.
Bird's nest pillar at the temple to Artemis. I'm pretty sure Courtney took this photo.
Courtney getting "exercise" on the way to Efes
Finally, Selçuk is very close to the House of Mary, the place where the Virgin Mary was supposed to have lived the last days of her life. As the story goes, a bed-ridden nun in Germany who had never left the country recorded a series of visions about the house in precise details, which were later recognized to be the hills around Efes. Expeditions were sent out and the house was discovered. There’s also a stream that’s supposed to bring healing powers if you drink it. Courtney drank it (not for me, thanks) and put some on her aching back, and sure enough it didn’t give her problems for much of the trip’s remainder. There was also a place to tie prayers, which Courtney did and I watched her do.
Courtney tying her prayer to the prayer wall. The photo is focused on the prayer that says "Love all children."
The house itself was simple, bucolic even. Just a couple of small rooms with modest arches, a little carpeting, an occasional portrait, and an altar with a cloth and an embroidered Turkish prayer (which I could roughly translate for Courtney), seeing as the Turkish language existed by the time the house was discovered. It was amazing to see and compare to the examples I’ve seen in my extensive European tourism. Cathedrals, huge churches, dazzling artistry and craftsmanship. Christianity has always been this huge thing in my mind, and yet here I was as close to its source as I’ve ever been, and it was nothing but a tiny, humble shack. Is this the way it’s meant to be, modest and stripped of everything unessential, or was this just the meager start of something meant to be the huge movement I see today?
Pamukkale
One of the best moments of the trip was a day trip to Pamukkale (“Cotton Castle”), a trip we seriously considered skipping because of the things we didn’t have time to see in Selçuk. I’m so glad we didn’t miss it! It was one of the most unique and gratifying things I’ve ever done.
One of Pamukkale's travertines
A stream of hot spring water going down Pamukkale. Courtney took this photo.
It’s impossible to get a notion of what it’s like to be at Pamukkale just by looking at photos or by reading these words. The place makes so little sense when you’re there, even when you’ve walked up and down barefoot and spent four hours thinking about it and watching it. I’ll try and make some sense of it for you, but that feels like an injustice to the place.
Courtney in one of the steaming travertines with mountains in the background
Scientifically speaking, Pamukkale is a natural hot spring, with waters roughly 36-38 degrees Celsius (something in the 90s Fahrenheit) with steaming waters rolling down a mineral deposit that turns the hill white. It gathers in little pools called travertines on its way down the slope.
Travertines from the top of Pamukkale. We weren't allowed in these.
I felt like the experience stimulated all five senses. We were not allowed to walk with shoes on, so we had to go barefoot on the mineral deposit. This was potentially a game-changer, something that would make me hate the day – the 3 hour long and very expensive bus ride was already bad enough. It was very cold outside, about 6 degrees Celsius, and I felt like my feet were going to fall off. As it turned out, though, walking barefoot was by far the best way to go. The white mineral deposit looks like snow from a distance, like Pamukkale is just a snow-covered hill, but when you walk on it it’s much harder than that. It digs into your feet like walking on a gravel driveway, and it turns out the little white ripples you see when you look close aren’t as sandy as they appear. It was so beautiful I had to stop and take pictures, but my feet wouldn’t let me stay put for long. The pools of water weren’t warm yet, not at the bottom of the hill, but we could see wet minerals, a freezing pasty, clay-like substance that seemed completely unrelated to the hard white hill we were walking on, even though it was the same thing just wet.
Pamukkale close up
Pamukkale's travertines as seen from the top. We weren't allowed in these, either.
Pamukkale close up with water trickling down
As we climbed the water gradually became warmer until we could comfortably walk inside a little stream the hot spring had cut into the minerals. We could see the steam rising up ahead of us and we could hear the water trickle down (yes, in trickle down economics the poor people only get the cold, feet-numbing Pamukkale where the rich get the hot spring at the top) and we could smell the heat in the air infused with minerals. Not to mention the gorgeous mountains surrounding the place on two sides, especially those across from Denizli (“with the sea,” which is stupid because the sea is like 2000 kilometers away from the city – but there are a lot of lakes…). We could smell the snowy mountain air with the heat and the minerals all together. It was bizarre. At this point I decided to include the one sense that had been left out and drank a handful of water – it’s supposed to be healing water anyway, according to the badly-written literature. It wasn’t delicious, just full of something. Turns out my sense of taste isn’t refined enough for me to describe it. Courtney wouldn’t try it, so I guess this makes up for the healing stream at Mary’s House, though I can’t say my body was healed after. My feet, on the other hand, definitely were. Courtney says she felt better after the hike up than the hike down, though I felt the reverse. One thing for sure, it was the best foot massage the world has to offer, and for days my feet felt better than ever before.
People trekking up Pamukkale
Courtney looking at the pasty minerals in one of the travertines with mountains in the background
Courtney taking a break with her feet in the warm spring. As a result of this some of Pamukkale got stuck to her jeans and came back with us to Selçuk.
As if this wasn’t awesome enough, at the top of the hill lays the ancient city of Hierapolis, which, little did I know, was on the same ticket as Pamukkale. The city used to be a spa haven, and there were bathhouses everywhere. I had neglected to bring a travel book, a terrible mistake, and in my mind I confused it with Pergamum and went in search of the agora, which turned out to be pretty lame in Hierapolis and is probably wonderful in Pergamum. On the other hand, I totally missed out on two things in Hierapolis I would have loves to have seen: 1) an apostle was supposedly martyred along with his family in one of the buildings, which would have been interesting to see, and more importantly, 2) there’s a swimming pool heated by Pamukkale’s source. The base of the pool is littered with ancient columns, marble structures, and whatnot. I could have swum with the ruins! I even had my swimsuit in case we were allowed to swim in Pamukkale’s travertines! I guess I just have to go back… We didn’t have enough time to go swimming anyway. That’s what I tell myself so help me go to sleep at night.
Ruins at Hierapolis with mountains in the background
Latrine. This picture's dedicated to you, Mom.
Still, Pamukkale was by far one of the best moments of my life and I totally recommend anyone traveling in Turkey not to miss it. I can’t describe it properly. You have to go for it to mean anything at all.
Can you see now why it’s so hard for me to go back to work? I’m already scheming about how I can make my way to Antalya and see the gorgeous Lower Düden Falls for myself instead of just ogling at pictures online:
