The city is set on a pine-forested slope, and is truly magnificent. Built of huge basaltic stone blocks, many of the monumental buildings still stand, and the remnants of intricate mosaic floors are visible. Continue to Antalya, magnificently situated atop 150-foot cliffs overlooking the sea. The award-winning renovations of the Old Port Section have recaptured the charm of the ancient Roman and Ottoman styles. Our hotel for the next two nights is a beautifully restored 19 th -century Ottoman home.
Dinner is free.
Continue to Aspendos, containing a fine Roman theater restored by Ataturk in 1932, and to the Antalya Archaeological Museum, an architectural delight housing artifacts from many nearby sites. A drive over the Taurus Mountains reveals terrain ranging from pastoral valleys to spectacular snow-crested peaks. Explore the magnificent ruined city of Sagalossos clinging perilously to the southern granite slopes of the Taurus Mountains. Originally inhabited by Pisidians, the pirates of the central Anatolian world, this was the highest city in the Roman Empire. In Konya visit the tomb of Mevlana, founder of the whirling dervishes.