We changed into our swimsuits at Laodicea and drove 12km north to Pamukkale. (David and I walked up the limestone travertines back in October not once, but twice!)

Pamukkale means “cotton castle” in Turkish and is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Entrance costs 25TL or is free with the Müzekart. The boys loved sitting in the hot springs, damming up the canal with their bodies, then letting the mineral water rush down to the boy at the bottom.

At the top of the hill were the ruins of the ancient city of Hierapolis (Colossians 4:13). We got to the site a little later in the day and didn’t have a lot of time to walk around before the sun started to set.

We did walk up to the theater. Hierapolis suffered several earthquakes, but this theater was reconstructed with 98% of the original pieces!

We had two more of the seven churches of Revelation on the schedule for the next day. After gözleme for dinner, we drove 180km west to the coast and stayed the night at Sergent Hotel in Kuşadası.