We had an 8am start from Antalya this morning and had about an hour in the bus before reaching Aspendos. This was once the easternmost city of the Kingdom of Pergamum and one of its main attractions is a well preserved Roman amphitheatre built around AD 162. 
It could seat about 12,000 and is still used on an annual basis to host the Aspendos Opera and Ballet Festival. This was by far the best preserved amphitheatre we have seen so far and this is due to the ongoing maintenance it has had over the centuries which has meant that much of the original construction has been retained.
It could seat about 12,000 and is still used on an annual basis to host the Aspendos Opera and Ballet Festival. This was by far the best preserved amphitheatre we have seen so far and this is due to the ongoing maintenance it has had over the centuries which has meant that much of the original construction has been retained.We carried on toward Konya, over the Toros (Taurus) Mountains, over good but winding roads, up to about 6,000 feet and back down to Seydisehir where we had lunch at another "pit stop cafe" mostly catering for tourists. This photo 
is of our lunch, a "Gosleme" which is a thin pancake spread with cheese or potato, folded and cooked on a rounded hotplate. Less than a km away was an aluminium smelter as the mountains are apparently rich in the ore used in aluminium extraction. Over the course of the morning, the landscape changed from crop plantations and hot-houses to pine forest, then to enormous rock faces with almost no vegetation 
and then back to pines with some cattle and goat farms. As we came back to the lower hills, the landscape was strongly reminiscent of the McKenzie Country in NZ. 
is of our lunch, a "Gosleme" which is a thin pancake spread with cheese or potato, folded and cooked on a rounded hotplate. Less than a km away was an aluminium smelter as the mountains are apparently rich in the ore used in aluminium extraction. Over the course of the morning, the landscape changed from crop plantations and hot-houses to pine forest, then to enormous rock faces with almost no vegetation and then back to pines with some cattle and goat farms. As we came back to the lower hills, the landscape was strongly reminiscent of the McKenzie Country in NZ. By 3pm we were in Konya where we visited the Karatay Koran School. 
Previously a mosque and now the resting place of the person who originally created not only the school but several other buildings that helped others less well off).
Previously a mosque and now the resting place of the person who originally created not only the school but several other buildings that helped others less well off).We then went to the Mevlana Museum which is an enlargement of the original dervish lodge and contains the remains of Celaleddin Rumi or Mevlana, the 13th century founder of the Mevlevi dervish sect - also known as the "Whirling Dervishes". He believed that music and dance were a means of inducing an ecstatic state of universal love and could allow the individual to free themselves of the anxiety and pain of daily living. In this state they were able to be closer to God. Also in the mausoleum were the tombs of his father and many other family members (about 60 odd in total) as well as important artefacts such as early copies of the Koran, carpets, etc. No photos are allowed inside the museum so the pictures are exlusively of the outside. 
We are now in our hotel almost on the University campus in Konya. Konya is a very spread out city on a large flat plain (with a population of about 1 million) and we seem to be somewhere near the edge of it. Worth noting that late this afternoon, we passed an electronic thermometer which was registering 36deg C at the time but not sure how accurate this was as it seemed slightly cooler than some of our previous days.
Tomorrow we head off to Cappadocia and the land of the fairy chimneys. We are booked to do a hot air balloon ride on Sunday morning (weather permitting).
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