Experience the best of Konya

Konya lies on the dry Anatolian plateau at about 1,000 metres and was the capital of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The poet and mystic Jalaluddin Rumi, known as Mevlana, settled here and died in 1273. His tomb, under a fluted turquoise dome, lies within the Mevlana Museum, a place of pilgrimage that also holds the hall of the dervishes. The Mevlevi order's whirling ceremony is still performed in the city, and Rumi's death is commemorated each December.

Seljuk monuments fill the centre: the Alaaddin Mosque on its hill, the Karatay Madrasa with its museum of tilework and the İnce Minare Madrasa with a deeply carved doorway. Sille, a village of rock-cut churches, lies a few kilometres north-west. Çatalhöyük, a Neolithic settlement some 9,000 years old and a World Heritage site, lies about 50 kilometres south-east on the plain, and Lake Beyşehir lies to the west.

Etli ekmek, a thin flatbread topped with minced lamb, fırın kebabı, lamb slowly roasted in a wood oven, and bamya çorbası, okra soup, are the regional dishes. The plain around the city is Turkey's grain heartland. Winters are cold and snowy at this altitude, and summers are dry.