Hamam

Today some friends and I from the Embassy visited the Turkish baths, or hamam. It was an absolutely amazing experience. The baths are over a thousand years old! We booked appointments for a soak and scrub (10 CYP for the baths, 6 CYP for the scrub). When we got there, our group was assigned our own little "lair" (Lisa's words) where we changed and were given a basket with our own scrubbie, a water bottle, two towels and a little silver bathing pan. We then marched en masse into the heated room and laid out on the heated marble. The areas closest to the core were the hottest. After we had been stewing awhile, we were led off one-by-one into a curtained room where we were scrubbed head to foot for 20 minutes. Literally, the whole top layer of my skin came off. Afterwards, we cooled down with alternating cool and hot baths, and then lounged around and drank tea in our lair. We grabbed dinner at the most amazing little Greek taverna afterwards.