Konya Audio Tours

Jalaluddin Rumi, the 13th-century Persian poet and mystic whose verses on love and surrender are still read in dozens of languages eight centuries after his death, spent the last fifty years of his life in Konya and died here in 1273. His mausoleum, the Mevlana Museum, draws more than two million visitors a year, making it the most visited site in Turkey outside Istanbul and the major archaeological sites. The turquoise-tiled dome is visible from across the city. Inside, the silver-latticed tomb and the domed chambers where his manuscripts are kept under glass create one of the more genuinely moving museum experiences in the country.

Konya served as the capital of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum from the late 11th century until the Mongol invasions of the 13th century, and the Seljuk architectural legacy is still visible in the Karatay and Ince Minare Medrese, both now tile and stone carving museums, and in the city walls.

The Aladdin Mosque on the city's central hill, the oldest mosque in Konya, was built by Seljuk sultans in the 12th and 13th centuries and is one of the finest examples of early Anatolian Islamic architecture.