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6th June
Day 5 - topdeck turkey explorer.
Was good to have a later start this morning and catch up on some sleep. We left the hotel at 9am and headed to a pottery place to watch a demonstration. The river that flow through this town brings with it a lot of clay soil from the mountains which is idea for using in pottery. We were able to watch a demonstration of one of the master from the factory using a foot powered pottery wheel. It was amazing how quickly the guy was able to get the wheel moving at the same time as creating a pot with lid from the lump of clay. We also looked at the process of decorating and glazing the pots. We looked around the showroom at some of the beautiful pieces on sale. Once finished there we hopped back on the bus and drove towards Konya. After an hour or so we stooped to visit the underground city of Kaymakli. This was an incredible underground system of dugouts, store room, stables, kitchens, air shafts and water wells. Up to 4000 people could live in this underground for over 20 days at a time without needed to go above ground. It was built and used by various groups of people as refuge/ hiding place during invasions and also a food store due to the constant temp. It was massive and walking/ crawling around inside it was like a crazy multiple level maze. In Some places it was 5 stories below ground level. I was glad we had a guide as without one I would have been lost with minutes. The living was a communal with large kitchens serviced by smoke tunnels that filtered it up to the surface and away so enemy wouldn't know that people were living underground. There were large air vents and wells located throughout the cities. It such a different place to see and was interesting that it was used by locals up too the 1920s. We walked for 45 mins undergrounds and only saw a 10th of the site as the rest isn't open to tourists, just to give you an idea of the size. Then it was back on the bus.
Stopped for lunch after a while at a road stop. There was free wifi so that was alright. Then it was back on the bus a couple of hours before we reached Konya. We drove straight to the Mevlana museum. Mevlana was an important turkish philosopher from the 13th century. He came up with 7 ideas by which people should think about. We looked through the mousaloum and surrounded building including some delicate calligraph work and the dervishes cells. Some of the group went out together to a smallish local cafe for dinner. Quiet night early to bed as we have a 7am departure.
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Anita Fascinating - you are keeping very busy - you should go into travel writing, your blog is so good!