I’d read a bit of information on travel blogs and had several objectives for today : visit the Mevlada museum, find the tourist office, visit the wood and stone museum and see a sema (whirling dervish) show.
The Mevlana museum is truly magnificent. It’s free to visit and is also a place of pilgrimage to honour the founder of Turkish spirituality. I took the audio guide to get some explanations, but you can’t listen to everything. You look at it, it’s beautiful. It’s already very busy in the morning.
I found the old tourist office... closed, and a guy kindly told me where to find the new one. I went in and quickly realised that the young woman who spoke English had the same accent as me when she spoke. We chat a bit, and I bump into her again in the Bazaar in the afternoon. The world of tourists is small.
Disappointment : the museum of wood and stone, interesting above all for the building that houses it, is being renovated...
In the end, the time passes very quickly and I head for the cultural centre where the Sema show is being held. It’s interesting to watch, but I sometimes find it hard not to fall asleep. It’s nagging and sometimes they talk for a long time without me understanding anything of course...
Tomorrow I’m off to Sultanhani.