The Sultanhanı caravanserai sits roughly halfway between Konya and Aksaray on the modern motorway — the same route the medieval Silk Road merchants travelled — and is the largest surviving Seljuk hanı in Turkey. It was built in 1229 under Sultan Alâeddin Keykubad I and rebuilt after a fire in 1278. The original purpose was to provide three days of free lodging and food to any travelling caravan, an early piece of state infrastructure that made Anatolia one of the most efficiently traversed parts of the medieval Islamic world.
Architecturally the building is a fortress in everything but name: massive blank outer walls of stone, a single fortified gate with carved Seljuk muqarnas decoration, and an interior arranged around a large open courtyard with stables, store rooms, and a small mosque-on-pillars at the centre. The covered hall at the back, where caravans wintered, is a long basilica of stone vaults supported on heavy piers — atmospheric, especially when sunlight comes through the high oculus in the roof.
Sultanhanı is a stop on most organised day trips from Konya to Cappadocia and is worth a detour even on a self-driven trip. Allow ninety minutes including the small village around it.