Despite a big bash on the go at the hotel last night we slept like the dead. But when we awoke this morning we still felt knackered. Last night we had ideas of quickly visiting the Sultanhan as soon as it opened this morning and then carrying on to Aksaray. However common sense got the better of us and we decided to move to a hotel in the town that has air-conditioning and recover properly from yesterday's efforts.
So we checked out at about ten thirty and cycled the remaining three kilometers to the center of Sultanhani. A quick check at each of the three hotels in town showed that only the Sultan Saray, the most expensive of course, had air-conditioning. Hoping that we will start camping more often once (if) it gets cooler we threw caution to the wind and took a room. Even though it was not yet eleven o'clock in the morning they allowed us to check in with the bicycles safely stored in a room off the lobby.
Then we walked to the Sultanhan just across the street from the hotel.
The Han, apparently the biggest and best preserved in Turkey, was built in 1229 by Seljuqs. The architect was the Syrian Muhammad ibn Khalwan al-Dimashqi from Damascus. It was on the Uzun Yolu, or long road, trade route leading from Konya to Aksaray and continuing into Persia. After it was partially destroyed by a fire, it was restored and extended in 1278. Covering almost five thousand square meters it is a truly impressive structure with both summer and winter quarters. The restoration seems, to my uneducated eye, quite tasteful and the embarrassingly low twenty lira entrance fee makes a mockery of the two hundred and fifty lira entrance fee to the delapidated theater in Side.
The courtyard, forty four by fifty eight meters with a Kiosk Mosque (köşk mescidi) in the center. On the southern arcade was accommodation while the northern arcade was open stables.
The entrance to the winter courtyard or iwan which has a barrel-vaulted ceiling with transverse ribs, with a short dome-capped tower over the center of the vault.
Our new air-conditioned hotel room and the visit to the Han had lifted our spirits so we wandered off to buy an ice-cream, stupidly stepping into the obviously tourist focused shop directly out the Han. They wanted to charge us 50 lira each for a Cornetto. I politely pointed out to the young lady serving us that the going rate was 15 lira so we would prefer to take our business elsewhere. On the next block we paid the standard 15 lira.
We strolled around the town center eyeing out the restaurants and checking where the locals were eating. We spied an Etliekmek shop doing a busy trade in takeaways and deliveries so we plonked ourselves down at a table.
There were quite a lot of staff pushing out etliekmeks in a very organized manner, some of them dead keen on us photographing them. This guy took small balls of dough and stretched them out into an super-elongated oval.
Our decision not to carry on today seems to have been a good one. A restful afternoon has us ready to head for Askaray in the morning. A short ride and hopefully our last one on a busy highway for a while. After that we hope to loop through Cappadocia on some back roads.
Today's ride: 4 km (2 miles) Total: 514 km (319 miles)
