5 Days Konya City, Cooking & Hamam Tour: Mevlana Museum, Beysehir Lake and Eflatun Pinari Private Tour

Highlights of the Konya City, Cooking and Hamam Tour

Konya, the old Seljuk capital on the high plains of Central Anatolia, is best known as the resting place of the poet and mystic Jalal ad-Din Rumi, called Mevlana by Turks. This five-day, four-night programme lets you explore that spiritual heritage at a gentle pace and then go beyond it, adding a lakeside excursion, a cookery session with a local chef and an afternoon in a traditional bath house. Transfers between Konya Airport and your hotel are included at both ends.

The first guided day starts in the city centre at the Mevlana Museum, Rumi's mausoleum and the former lodge of the Mevlevi dervishes famed for their whirling ceremony. You will walk through the kitchen where novices trained, the tomb chamber, the room once used for Quran recitation and the semahane, the hall where the ritual dance was performed. Next door stands the Selimiye Mosque, an Ottoman work begun for Prince Selim in 1558 and finished in 1567. After lunch the route leads to Beysehir Lake, a national park dotted with some thirty islets and loved by birdwatchers. On its shore you visit the Esrefoglu Mosque of 1299, whose carved wooden columns have survived more than seven centuries, and Eflatun Pinari, a Hittite spring sanctuary of the 13th century BC with reliefs of winged sun discs.

Day three moves into the kitchen of a local restaurant, where the chef teaches you regional Konya recipes, side salads and a sweet course, and you eat what you prepare for lunch. Day four is set aside for a hamam: warm, hot and cool rooms in the Roman manner, and attendants known as tellak and natir who perform the traditional scrub. Four nights of hotel accommodation, four breakfasts, one lunch, a professional English-speaking guide, air-conditioned transport and all listed entrance fees are included.