Turkey part II

After breakfast ,We visited the ruins of Troy. Yes the famous Troy of Homer's Iliad. While going through the itinerary when I came across this part, I had thought this is some other place which is similar to the one in the Greece. I have never been to Greece so thought it logical that Troy to be in today's Greece. I was surprised to find out that The actual Trojan war for the famous Helen of Troy took place at this place and this was part of Greece in ancient times.
( I was pleasantly surprised to note that Homer the author who wrote this famous epic is from a neighbouring place called Izmir.) We saw the ancient ruins which are still being excavated and is a world heritage site. A model of wooden (Trojan?) horse has been kept there for the purpose of photo sessions I suppose and we were all very thrilled to have visited such a historically important place.
We were next taken to top of a hill where ancient kingdom of Acropolis is situated. Acropolis is nothing but a city built on a hill top which is built for the purpose of safety specially from enemies. This is also a Greek structure and it is supposed to have been built around
1st century A.D.
We proceeded to a place called Kusadasi for night's stay and next morning visited the house of Virgin Mary which is also on a hill. It is said that Virgin Mary was brought here after the Crucifixion here by St. John . This is considered as a Holy place by the Catholics and Roman Catholic Church at Vatican has approved this as a holy place.
We proceeded to a place called Ephesus. This is an ancient city and the ruins of which have been very well preserved. There is a temple for Goddess Artemis considered as Goddess of family. (this goddess was unique to ancient Turkey but later accepted in the Greek pantheon of gods and goddesses) Saw the statue of Goddess Nike from which the symbol for the famous Nike shoes have been adopted. We saw the ancient library structure and then the magnificent
Amphi Theatre which could hold 25000 people at a time. This is one of the most beautiful ancient structures I have seen.
We then proceeded to a place called Pammukale where we can see the white cascade like natural phenomenon. It is calcium carbonate deposits on a hill where you can see the amazing white snow like deposits over which the spring water flows. It is a lovely natural phenomenon. We could walk on them with bear foot. Tejas enjoyed walking down the hill on his own with energetic Mrs. S and the young and energetic S. This walking is supposed to have medicinal value. Incidentally, this is the spot where the shooting of the song 'Konjaneram Konjaneram' in Rajanikanth's, Chandramukhi has been picturised.
We were told that preivously many hotels were built very near this natural phenomenon and the place started turning black due to pollution. So the Government moved all the hotels away from this place and now the natural spring water is made to flow in different directions every day so that the white colour is retained and the whole thing is preserved properly. It is heartening to note that some action has been taken to restore such a beautiful site.
We proceeded to the hotel. There was a pool which had the water from the hot water spring with medicinal value and also lot of mud which was also supposed to have medicinal value. After dinner Tejas enjoyed getting into this pool and smeared the mud on himself and for once I could not say anything.