WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

TERRY RICHARDSON

TURKEY EXPERT

I am interested in visiting Pamukkale in Turkey. I will be travelling alone and I want to be able to dip into the waters while I’m there. However, I can’t swim and am worried that the pools might be slippery.

HELEN SHANMUGAM uncrowded visit is to spend the night in Pamukkale village, which has plenty of accommodation – try Melrose Hotel (melrosehousehotel.com) and the dearer Hotel Hal-Tur (haltur.net). Then explore the formations and ancient site the following morning. The vast majority of day trippers don’t arrive until the afternoon after the long drive from the coast.

Hierapolis-Pamukkale is situated on the western rim of the vast Anatolian plateau, around 120 miles east of the popular Aegean resort cum cruise ship port of Kusadasi, near Ephesus. Comfortable inter-city coaches run from here to Denizli, the nearest city to Pamukkale and frequent buses and minibuses make the 40-minute run between Denizli’s bus station and Pamukkale.

Turkish Airlines (turkish airlines.com) and Pegasus (flypgs.com) both fly to Denizli’s Cardak airport from Istanbul, and both also offer flights from the UK to Istanbul. As to when to travel – May, June and September are good; warm and sunny but not too hot.

what I can say – having flown with all three airlines in the last two years – is that they offer a similar level of service, reliability and comfort.

But the revolution is about more than mere price. As airlines try to find an edge in a busy marketplace, they launch fresh connections which open up the globe – and the broadening of horizons is not limited to the US. Norwegian brought in a non-stop hop from Gatwick to Singapore last September, before China Airlines re-introduced its direct connection between the UK (also Gatwick) and Taiwan in December. Small world? Yes. And getting smaller by the minute.