Antalya to Cappadocia

As we had been warned several times, today was going to be a long day. Our final destination was Urgup in Cappadocia.

First stop was an area with lots of fruit stalls on the side of the road where we bought some tiny bananas.

Next was Konya where we looked through the Mevlâna Museum, the former lodge of the whirling dervishes. We looked through the monastery with the impressive tomb of Rumi, artefacts and writings from the Koran.

We stopped briefly at a lake discovered by Ilker himself! It’s by a caravanserai which is being restored, but Ilker found the lake whilst there. It is deep hole in the ground and the water is up to 900m deep.

Later we stopped at another caravanserai called Sultanhani on the road to Aksaray (that used to be part of the Silk Road). This one was very commercialised with lots of shops surrounding it. These places were walled hotels for travellers to stop with their camels and offered a safe place to stay the night. They were locked after sunset and under the protection of the government.

12 hours after departing we made it to our nice boutique hotel in Urgup, Cappadocia. Ilker took us to the ‘posh’ restaurant that he promised for another nice dinner. Oh, so much food, and most of it meat!