The Brucato's and Turkey II: Across the Konya plain to Lakeland!

Saturday, May 31, 2014

Hello!

Beautiful countryside outside of Konya

Lovely ancient stone bridge

We were up this morning at the usual time, but as we had to organize and repack for our move to Egirdir, it took us a bit longer than usual to get downstairs for breakfast. It was great, as usual! Really, truly a lovely hotel, and worthy of all the good Tripadvisor reviews. We were finally on our way a few minutes after 9. To be honest, it is so hard to believe that Konya has 1,500,000 people, as the traffic is absolutely non-existent! Quite an easy time getting out of town and heading west to our next stop.

But first, another (yes, another!) Hittite site to find! And this one was actually fairly easy – with signage and everything! The site is called Sacred Pool of Eflatun Pinar, and after Yazilikaya (next to Hattusha) it was the second most important religious centre of the Hittites. It really is quite something – to see these huge carved blocks standing where they have been standing since the 13^th century BC, and having the water still course through them and out into the sacred pool.

Eflatun Pinar!!

The site consists of 19 rectangular stone blocks and on 17 of them are carved reliefs of gods and demons. On top of the blocks there is one huge sun disk, and right below it are two conjoined sun disks. Again, we had the place to ourselves – although a local lady did come by with lots of examples of her knitting handiwork! In front of the pool are three bull protoms standing on a mass of stone. All in all, it is a very impressive – and even better, easy to find Hittite site!

Fascinating place to visit!

From there, we continued our drive to Egirdir and the ChooChoo Pension! Absolutely stunning countryside. I know I keep saying that, but it really, truly is an amazingly beautiful country! This time we had high mountains on one side, and lake on the other! While Turkey doesn’t have that many lakes, most of what there are are concentrated here in Lakeland, like the English Lake District. We drove along the east side of the lake, and got to our next stop about 2 p.m. Egirdir itself is situated mainly at the base of the lake, and then there is a very slim causeway that leads out into the lake and extends about half a mile long to where we are staying. Lovely breezes!

Bull protoms

Oh! And, while we were driving, we came upon fields of lovely white flowers. Robert thought at first they were fields of tulips, but when we finally stopped so that he could take a picture, he reported back that yep, those were poppies all right – the opium kind! Apparently, this part of Turkey is responsible for approximately 25% of the world’s legal production of the stuff! (We had read that the fields near Afyon, to the north of us, were lovely with the poppies in the spring, and thought we might take a drive up that way tomorrow…but as it is, no need! They’re fairly common!)

Really lovely place to stay! Certainly not up-scale or fancy, but large, airy light-filled bedrooms with nice modern bathrooms.

Still more beautiful countryside!

Our room, on the third (top) floor, shares a really large balcony with the room next door and looks out on the lake! We’re very, very pleased! The owner and his son helped us upstairs with all of our luggage, and we were able to get settled. Then, downstairs to their very nice restaurant, for some lunch!

Field of poppies!

As Robert says, if we don’t go anywhere tomorrow, that is OK with him, as this is such a lovely place to sit, read and have a glass of wine! For lunch, I ordered a plate of hummus and a bowl of wonderful tomato soup. Robert had the soup and a toasted cheese and tomato sandwich, washed down by a nice glass of wine.And after SUCH a strenuous day, we both had lovely naps and now it’s after 6 p.m. NO idea where the day has gone, but there are some children across the street playing in the water – brrrr…looks WAY too cold to me!