Making up for lost time

18.9.21

This morning’s view over Red Valley, Cappadocia was everything we could have hoped for and more.

I can’t even begin to shortlist the photos, so not even going to try.

We saw a sign for a path to a Church. Path was an exaggeration but omg..stunning.

Luckily there was a different, easy path back. As we got nearer to Naz we could see Jandarma and lots of shouting.

All safe and sound, was definitely something those people won’t forget in a hurry!

We headed towards Konya, 243 km away.

Ultimately we want to get to Eğirdir by this evening as John wants the breakfast tomorrow that we missed when the clutch went near Burdur.

After Aksaray, the land was very flat. The soil is salty around here, there’s a salt lake and sugar cane and cereals grow. We saw the huge Bal Küp sugar factory.

The road continued, very long, straight and nothing of any significance. As we got closer to Konya I wondered if a couple of hours stop was a bad idea.

The ourskirts are very industrial.

When we did our trip to Cappadocia in 2007 we stopped at the main bus station and didn’t dare get off the bus as every woman was covered and we’d have been very out of place. Since then I imagined it to be very religious and austere. I was mindful of wearing long sleeves and we both wore trousers.

Most tourists just do a quick stop off to see a whirling dervish ceremony en route to Cappadocia.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konya

We instantly loved it, apart from trying to get through the traffic and find somewhere to park. We drove a few metres more and found a huge virtually empty car park. It’s the same in every city, Turks like to park right outside where they want to go, will double park and wait for a gap rather than have a 15 minute walk!

The weather was beautiful, low 20s with a cool breeze. We were a tad warm but better than being stared at.

It’s a very beautiful city, lovely green spaces, amazing architecture and plenty of eateries. We were starving, so our first stop was a chicken doner kebab. It’s always interesting how the same food has it’s own variation in different cities. This was quite spicy and bless the nice friendly guy for picking the parsley out of the onion for us as we both hate it.

While I ordered John nipped into one of the many opticians opposite. He only got new glasses in July and has had to get one lens replaced as it cracked. They were THE best lenses when we were sold them, but 2 weeks later weren’t under guarantee when he had to have a lens replaced and apparently they were not good quality. Shame on that nasty man almost opposite Fethiye Devlet hospital..

Anyway, since we’ve been away 1 lens has peeled at the top and another is chipped at the bottom. I always say if I had a £ for every pair of glasses John’s broken in the 14 years I’ve known him I’d be wealthy, but having been with him 24/7 I know he hasn’t dropped, sat on or generally abused them.

For just 200tl ( £17) both lenses were made just a couple of hours later, 150tl less than 1 from the nasty man in Fethiye.

I wanted to visit the ceramic tile museum. John warned me that I didn’t like the one in Istanbul, but no, I wanted to go.

The building and the ceiling was beautiful, but beyond that most people have more tiles in their homes.

Next door looked interesting.. A huge tent of digital displays. We asked the guy at the entrance what it was, he said films of buildings and history, so we gave it a go.

This was the 1st time in 3 weeks that we’ve been asked to wear a mask, had our temperature and HES (a bit like track and trace) code checked. We were directed to the first area where we all stood on individual circles 2m apart. Then the next room, then another, by the 4th we left. John felt dizzy, the graphics were awful. The rooms took us from soldiers on horseback, to present day promotion of all the Government future projects. Anyone would think there was an election in a couple of years.

Every turn brought more photo opportunities.

We had a künefe break before visiting the Mevlana museum, with ice cream as it was cruelly sitting there by our table begging us to eat it. Delicious and lovely friendly staff.

The Mevlana museum is free. Call me cynical but most museums in Turkey are empty, this one was rammed.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mevlana_Museum

Time to leave beautiful Konya and set off towards Lake Eğirdir.

I even had a little drive on the way.

We got our first glimpse of the lake 226km later just as the sun was going down.

A perfect place to park for the night. We even saw 2 other motorhomes, we expected to see loads over the last 3 weeks, but maybe they were hiding in various sanays 😂

We went into town. There was a Gaziantep food fair on, that made up for only seeing Gaziantep sanay! There were film screens and children’s entertainers and was really busy.

We had dinner in a lokanta where most things had run out, not even any çay! We made do with lentil soup and pide as couldn’t be bothered to wander any more. Not sure if we were just tired or sad that our trip is almost over.

John had a beer later by the water in a little place on the way back, I opted for çay, bad move as it was undrinkable.

Tomorrow is breakfast at Arzarva restaurant by the lake, Tread the Globes Marianne and Chris raved about it on one of their videos.

Then it’ll be around 5 hours to get home. We both said we want to go home but at the same time we don’t want to go.

That makes no sense at all. Night night xx