The pilgrim cities
Rumi's tomb, the dervishes, Roman theaters, Moorish prayer halls. Old enough that the stone is worn smooth.
Where Rumi is still buried, where the whirling started, and where modern Turkey's most observant Anatolia still keeps its hours of prayer.
The best-preserved Greco-Roman city on the Mediterranean coast. The Library of Celsus alone is reason to come.
The Mezquita — eight hundred years of being both mosque and cathedral, at the same time, in the same building. The most physically improbable monument in Spain.
The City of Three Cultures — Christians, Jews, and Moors living and building side by side for centuries, all of it stacked on a granite spur ringed by the Tagus.
Antiquity in the foundations, Renaissance in the churches, Baroque in the fountains, Vespas in the rest. Walk it backwards through time.