Where goddesses loved and fought

On top of this, in total about 2700 meters long, 600 meters wide and 160 meters high, Hierapolis, or the city of Hera, used to sit. Today, the ancient Greco-Roman city could only be called ruins, with its history parceled up in museums. (Visitors can still bathe - and pose for pictures - in the nearby Roman bath, while taking extra caution to avoid getting hurt by the architectural debris - a fallen Roman column for example - that lie scattered on the bottom of the pool.)

However, the natural beauty alone could do justice to the goddess who rules over Mount Olympus. Water drips over a vast mountainside, collecting in terraces and forming milky pools reflective of the pale blue sky. On the day of my visit, a young couple wearing white facial masks immersed themselves neck-deep in one of the pools. The resultant color correspondence created a stunning piece of performance art. (The pristine landscape also provided a perfect backdrop for two Muslim girls donned in white.)

The hand of water, which over the past hundreds of thousands of years has stroked the white ground surface numerous times, had created fine folds, so fine and visually rhythmic that they reminded me of the pleated grains on a clam shell.