Patrick Ashton

We are planning to be in Turkey for 18 days in May. Would appreciate help with our itinerary. We will start in Istanbul for four nights, fly to Kayseri to get a car and stay at Esbelli Evi (a small cave hotel) in Ugurp for three nights. Then we plan to drive towards Antalya. Should we spend a night in Konya, or go right on through and spend a night or two at Egirdir on the lake? <BR>From there we thought two nights in Antalya, 2 nights each in either Fethiye or Kas, and in Bodrum. We plan to end our stay in Kusadasi for three nights. We'll take the ferry to Samos to start an extended island hopping in the Greek Isles. Can anybody fill us in on driving times? We live in Florida and are not interested in the beaches in Turkey and we get a little tired of ruins. Mainly we love absorbing the culture, architecture and daily living habits of the places we visit, and like to stay in nice smallish hotels or inns, generally within the heart of the "old towns". Help anyone??

Al

Other than Mevlana's tomb and related buildings, Konya offers little. Egidir's lake is beautiful. Blue, blue, blue. A nice place to relax. Not exciting. Antalya, on the other hand, offers a lot. The ruins of Aspendos and Perge are wonderful, and the Archeologial Museum in Antalya is a must-see. The beach towns along the Aegean andMediterranean can become very crowded later on, but May should be OK. The jillions of Germans arrive in June.

Patrick Ashton

Thanks for the advice, especially about Konya. And about the lake. But is it too far to drive from Ugurp to Antalya in one day?? Thought we might need an intermediate stop between.

Al

Yes, Cappadocia to Antalya in a single shot is too far. You do NOT want to be on the road after dark. Stay overnight in Konya; you will be glad you did. We stayed in the Hotel Dundar. Good English spoken. Good food. Very comfortable and clean. Big mosque right across the street. They start the call to prayer at dawn -- so you will not oversleep.

Patrick

Our latest plan is to spend both one night in Konya and one night at Lake Egridir. Then drive to Antalya for 2 nights before proceding up the coast. Is this too much?? Several tours stop at Egridir and hike around the lake which we thought must be nice in the morning or evening. And Konya seems like our one spot to spend a night away from the tourist crowds. Is that right?? I can find very little specific information on this area in the guide books, and frankly have been disappointed at the few comments I have received on this site. Is this area simply not worth doing?? Or have just very few people done it??