Day 189 Sun 22 April 2007 Konya to Eskisehir, Turkey

After breakfast we stroll down to the Mevlani museum/shrine to the founder of the whirling dervish sect, and join the throng paying their respects. The museum is in a mosque like building with beautifully ornate decoration around the tombs of the leading dervishes, with displays of musical instruments, glass lanterns and cloaks dating back to the C14. The shrine is topped by a fabulous turquoise green tiled minaret. We buy some dervish music CDs – definitely for the ipod chill-out playlist and head north towards the Phrygian Valley with its C5-6BC remains and Tomb of King Midas, surprisingly not made of gold. The ‘tomb’ is actually a vertical slab of inscribed stone, about 30m high set in the crags on top of a hill, with a rock hewn monastery next door.

Then its on to the Seljuk / Ottoman monastery and tomb complex at Seyitgazi 20km further north built to commemorate Batal gazi a warrior who fought for the Arabs against the Byzantines and was killed in 740AD. We reach Eskisehir, a large modern city with a recently beautified canal lined with cafes running through the centre and spend a long time getting lost in the one way pedestrian street section before finding a ‘thermal’ hotel with hot spring water and a Turkish bath in the basement.