When looking up top tourist things to do or see the top 10 included 8 mosques, a mosque museum, and the Mevlana museum and mosque. It's a very religious city.
However we did run across this church. It was surprising to see it in the middle of this 'Turkish capital of the muslim world' but someone it's stayed put for years. Sadly it was closed so we couldn't go inside.
We did go to the Mevlana museum. Mevlana was the father of the whirling dervishes and the museum is where the men lived and worshipped. The museum was interesting but very crowed and full of old teyzes pushing and shoving.
Teyze is the word for 'aunt' but typically means older grandmother-type ladies. I think they're really cute in their mis-match of patterns and baggy clothing.
They remind me of rag dolls.
After the museum we walked though a cemetery. It's interesting to see the old Turkish script (looks similar to Arabic) on some of the markers and the different dates (for a while they counted years based on a muslim date instead of when Jesus was born). While walking we were stopped by a older worker driving by in his golf cart. He offered us candy from a little box he kept in his cart and insisted on washing our hands with rose cologne before wishing us a good day and driving off.
We wandered the city the rest of the day enjoying the market and the charming people. Konya is very different than my usual world and I enjoyed getting to see and experience it. It's a charming city and though we stood out as foreigners the people didn't seem very interested in us as we walked though the market and watched the people.
We finished off the day with coffee and some complementary chocolates before heading back to the train station for the trip home.
1 comment:
So cool!! Love the photos. :)
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