Konya lies on the dry central plateau of Anatolia, about a thousand metres above the sea, and it has been an important city for as long as anyone has kept records. The Seljuk Turks made it their capital in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and it became a centre of learning and Sufi mysticism, the home of Jalal ad-Din Rumi, the poet and teacher who is known in Turkey as Mevlana. After his death in 1273 his followers founded the Mevlevi order, whose members perform the whirling ceremony, the sema, in which dancers in tall felt hats and white skirts turn slowly with one palm raised and one lowered. His tomb, under a fluted dome covered in turquoise tiles, is the most visited shrine in the country, and the pilgrims who gather there at all hours give the city a quiet devotional tone.
The city has other Seljuk monuments, including the Alaeddin Mosque on its hill and the Karatay Medrese, whose domed hall is covered in tile work in blue and turquoise. Conservative and proud of it, Konya is a place where bakeries sell etli ekmek, a long flat bread topped with minced lamb, and where the evening streets are calm. About forty kilometres south-east, on the plain, lies Çatalhöyük, a settlement of mud-brick houses entered from the roof, inhabited some nine thousand years ago and now a World Heritage site.
For a rider the surrounding country is vast, flat and bare. Roads run dead straight across steppe, with grain fields, poplars and the occasional grey village, and the sky is huge. Crosswinds can be strong, the summer sun is relentless, and in winter the plateau can be icy and snow-swept, with real cold. Distances between settlements are long, so keep an eye on fuel. To the west the lake of Beyşehir is a pleasant day trip, with mountains behind, and to the north-east, on the road toward Aksaray, the huge Seljuk caravanserai at Sultanhanı still shows what a medieval roadside stop looked like.
Konya is a big city with every service, and fuel stations are everywhere around it. The traffic inside the ring road is dense, but outside it the roads open quickly. A glass of tea in a courtyard near the Mevlana museum is the proper pause.