City in Aegean Region, Turkey
Photo: Gülhan Nurhan, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Denizli is a city in the Southern Aegean region of Turkey, which most visitors simply transit to reach Pamukkale 20 km north. It's a typical modern Turkish city, far from picturesque, but does have enough sights of its own if your schedule allows. It's the main conurbation of Denizli province and most of it is nowadays within Pamukkale District (formerly Akköy), with a population in 2022 of 347,926. This means that places in and around the city shown on maps as "Pamukkale" may be far from the travertine pools you're looking for.
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Atatürk stayed overnight here on 4 Feb 1931, when it was the local party offices. In the 1950s it was a TB dispensary. It became an ethnography and city history museum in 1984 but the 19th century structure needed an extended closure for repairs, re-opening in 1999.
What it says on the label. At least now you know that bez bebek is Turkish for a rag doll.
Laodikeia Antik Kenti
This city grew up from around 260 BC; it was on a spur of a hill along trade routes and became wealthy. About 213 BC, some 2000 Jewish families were deported here from Phrygia, and that community was proselitized by early Christian evangelists: Revelation 3:14–22 scorns them as lukewarm and insipid. The city was wrecked by an earthquake of 60 AD but rebuilt. Its main avenue is called Syria Street. The temple has a glass floor so you can look down into the basement and see offerings uncovered during excavations. There's also a west amphitheatre, a scrappy north amphitheatre, and church foundations, plus an outlying stadium and baths. Any bus or dolmuş towards Pamukkale will drop off by the approach road then you walk 1.5 km west.
Kaklık Mağarası
This small karstic cave has dripstone stalactites and stalagmites like many others but also has travertine pools, a miniature Pamukkale. A walkway leads through it, then you can use the 26°C mineral pool outside.
Amusement park and fairground.
Bağbaşı Yaylası v Teleferik
This mountain area is accessed by a cable car from Tekkeköy village. You can camp up here.
Lamb kebab is the thing to order here, since it's the only choice on the menu. You'll seldom find better.
Good meat dishes, filling and inexpensive.
Long-established place for toast and kokorec.
Clean friendly hotel near the bus station.
In a workaday commercial district by the main highway, get a room at the back if you're bothered by traffic noise. Nevertheless a clean comfy place, best suited to motorists.
Business hotel on main highway just south of centre.
By bus
Buses from Istanbul take 10-11 hr via Gebze, Bursa, Izmir, Aydin and Nazilli. They run hourly daytime and every couple of hours through the night, for a fare in 2023 of 620 TL.
By train
Pamukkale Ekspresi trundles once a day from Eskişehir, taking 8 hours 20 min via Kütahya, Afyon and Çardak.
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Denizli · Regional · DNZ
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