Lycus River

Our stay at Pamakkale was in the Lycus river Hotel, a huge complex with natural thermal baths and pools. After a couple of days on the road, spending some time in the thermal baths was refreshing and ...

... , which was capable of seating more than 12,000 spectators. We went to our hotel mid-afternoon.  The hotel we stayed in, Lycus River, was lovely and had a thermal pool and and spa.  It had started raining at the end of our visit to Hieropolis ...

... , a lone traveler. Now seeing a lot of the places Paul went, I'm floored by how much he got around. Today, I went up to the Lycus river valley, where Colossae (as in the Letter to the Colossians), Laodicea (Col. 2 and 4, Rev. 1 and 3), and Hierapolis ...

... to get anywhere north of Beirut, one first needs to cross the Narh al-Kalb, or what was in ancient times known as the Lycus River, an almost insurmountable river crossing. Or so suggest the multiple inscriptions in the rocks along the river, of conquerors ...

... (of which more later) via Nahr Al-Kalb. This is a gorge where successive armies have been forced to cross the Lycus River in perilously exposed single file. Those that made it across have carved stelae in the canyon walls in thanks. Nebuchadnezzar ...

... area is also Pamukkale.)With Colossae and Laodicea, Hierapolis became part of the tri-city area of the Lycus River valley. Hierapolis was located across the river from the other two cities and was noted for its textiles, especially wool. ...

... of love. We viewed theatre, temple ruins, odean, and a huge stadium. Nearby museum had many statues etc. On to the Lycus River region the location of 3 nearby cities. We visited Laodicea one of the 7 churches mentioned in Revelations. Site excavations ...

Amazing limestone formations and thermal calcium ...

Our first stop today was at a Turkish carpet shop called Turkmen. We were able to view the carpet making process, starting with the making of silk string from cocoons. It was really cool - a lady took a brush and scraped it over a boiling pot of water ...

Leaving Izmir we headed east for Pamukkale(meaning cotton castle).  Here we toured the ancient Greek and Roman hot springs at Hieropolis in present day Pamukkale.  Besides the wonderful ruins (and especially the necropolis) we saw beautiful ...