Pamukkale and Ephesus from Denizli

You can start this tour from Izmir, and after Ephesus and Pamukkale tour, You can return to Denizli. Or you can start in Denzili and return from Izmir after Pamukkale and Ephesus Tour. Whether as Pamukkale (Cotton Castle) or ancient Hierapolis (Holy City), this village has drawn the weary and the curious to its thermal springs for more than 23 centuries. The Turkish name refers to the extraordinary surface of the snow-white cliffs, shaped over millennia by the accumulation of calcium deposited by mineral springs. Legend has it that the formations are solidified cotton (the area’s principal crop) left out to dry by giants. Dripping slowly down a vast mountainside, mineral-rich water foams and collects in bowls that terrace the decline spilling over petrified cascades of stalactites into milky pools below.

The site of ancient Hierapolis and the accompanying museums are overshadowed by the springs but are nevertheless fascinating. Ephesus is the most famous historical place in Turkey. It is also Turkey's best-preserved ruins. For a wholesale archaeological fix, search no further than Ephesus. The findings here are not just your standard ancient heap but the remains of one of the more important cities of the Roman Empire. The ruins from the Roman and early Chrisan era is so extensive and well-preserved that one need not struggle to imagine the daily interaction of the 250,000 people who lived here nearly two millennia ago. As a strategic coastal gateway to the Eastern world, this Ionian refuge grew to be the second largest Roman Empire, the site of a Christian shrine, and one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.