Things to do in Konya

Konya is a pilgrimage city that happens to receive tourists. Rumi is buried here. The green-tiled dome over his tomb is what most people come for, and the city around it is calm for its size.

The tomb and what surrounds it

The Mevlana Museum is the old dervish lodge. It is a shrine before it is a museum. Shoes come off, heads are covered, and the queue moves slowly past the sarcophagi.

• The lodge. Cells, instruments and manuscripts around a courtyard, with the tomb chamber at the end.
• The sema. The whirling is a ceremony, not a show. Public performances run weekly and fill in December.
• Şeb-i Arus. Rumi's death is marked on 17 December, and the week before it is the busiest of the year.
• Seljuk Konya. This was the sultanate's capital, and the medreses around the centre are what is left of it.

Older than all of it

Çatalhöyük lies about fifty kilometres southeast, a Neolithic town of houses entered through the roof. It joined the World Heritage list in 2012.

Practical

• Season. Spring and autumn. The plateau is bitter in winter and dry-hot in July.
• Dress. Covered shoulders and knees at the shrine, scarves lent at the door. The city as a whole is more conservative than the coast.
• Alcohol. Harder to find than anywhere on the coast, and not served in most restaurants.
• The fast train reaches Konya from Ankara in under two hours, which makes a day trip realistic.
• Half a day is enough for the tomb and the centre; Çatalhöyük needs its own half.
• Alaeddin Hill. The mound in the middle of the city, with the Seljuk mosque on top and the tram running round the bottom.
• One tram line links the station, the hill and the shrine, which covers almost everything a visitor needs.