I was lost deep in Turkey, beyond the tourists, beyond the road signs and beyond, it seemed, even the Turks, when a whole family of them rode to my rescue.

Their horse-drawn cart clattered through the weird volcanic stonescape, with its weather-sculpted “fairy chimneys”, to pull up with a haul on the reins opposite the wound-down window of my hire car.

No sooner had I mentioned that I was after the Castle of Avdalaz — a line worthy, even in my terrible Turkish, of Tintin — than the cart had turned around and was leading me back in the direction it had just appeared from.

Minutes later, this escort of shawled women, tousled children and moustachioed men had delivered me down a deterio­rating track to my elusive destination. I watched them disappear in a dust ball of friendly, waving arms before exploring the 100ft-high crag of hewn-out chambers and cisterns, staircases, belvederes and niched chapels, which proved every bit as wondrous as its name had suggested.

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Think of inland Turkey and it’s unlikely it will suggest more to the unfamiliar visitor than isolated highlights such as the moonscapes of Cappadocia and the jade-green Sufi shrines of Konya. That’s a pity, according to the people of ancient Phrygia, in western central Turkey, land of the Golden Touch and the Gordian Knot. They think their own Cappadocia-style landscapes and numerous stone-carved settlement sites deserve a place on the tourist itineraries.

A striking absence of facilities — not only inns or loo stops, but even local tea houses — doesn’t help their cause. That said, the self-drive traveller who likes the track unbeaten will find this wild region a real temptation.

There was not so much as a postcard stall or a ticket window at Avdalaz. Having sites to myself was largely the way of things in the Phrygian valley. What company there was tended to be local. At Aslantas, I found myself buffeted by bundles of smelly wool when a shepherd and his flock swept past me at this roadside tomb, with its startling reliefs of two heraldic lions. And at Kumbet, with its skyline Selcuk tomb, village children trailed me among the ruins.

Only at Midas Sehri (City of Midas) did I find a few tourists (French), an entrance fee (80p) and even a guide. Veysel Bey had looked after the site, a miniature Petra of stepped rock tunnels, altars and statue niches, for 18 years, as his father had done before him.

As we admired the centrepiece, a vast pedimented and patterned facade, he dismissed any connection, despite the name, with the legendary King Midas. Instead, the site was the Phrygians’ centre of religious devotion to Cybele, the ancient Anatolian fertility goddess.

I had based myself at nearby Afyonkarahisar, or Opium Black Fort. The surrounding poppy fields reminded me that this provincial capital, with its dramatically sited citadel, has long been the centre of (now controlled) opium production.

Afyon can seem devout, even sombre, but its extensive Ottoman old town, an artisans’ quarter to shame Istanbul’s Covered Market and a rich foodie culture actually make it perhaps the most authentically interesting town in western Turkey. I had not been exploring for long before discovering that they still make things in Afyon — including kepeneks (heavy felt shepherds’ ponchos) and hand-hammered metalware — that elsewhere appear only in antiques shops.

I eased into the evening Afyon-style, with a leisurely soak at the Imaret hammam. The convivial atmosphere of a gentlemen’s club had settled upon this warren of marbled sweat rooms, where towelled, tubby men relaxed around a marble fountain. I had worked up an appetite by the time I left.

The brightly lit windows of a kuruyemis (delicatessen), where butter rose from the counter in ornately patterned mounds, sweet sausages of walnut set in molasses swung from ceiling hooks, and the local crumbly tulum cheese came packed in goat hides, set me salivating.

I ate at Ikbal’s, an Afyon institution, and pondered the vast gilt mirror that dominated the wall. It was from the Yildiz Palace, in Istanbul, home of the fallen sultans, a gift from the Turkish war hero and leader Ataturk, by way of thanks for the meals he had enjoyed here in the 1920s.

Pamukkale, on the fringes of Phrygia, returned me to more familiar territory. This calcified hillside, with its scallop-shaped pools spilling mineral-rich thermal waters, was the very image of Turkey’s delights in the early days of tourism.

Uncontrolled development subsequently overran the site, but it has recently been overhauled. The sprawling motels have been removed, the last of them this spring, and all vehicles have been barred from entering to the site.

The travertines are on the mend. “The water is incredibly rich in minerals,” the man at the tourism office explained. “I washed my bike in it just the other day, and came back to find it looking like it was covered in icing.”

The true revelation proved to be Hierapolis, an ancient spa city, so long in adjacent Pamukkale’s shadow, that has now emerged as one of the most rewarding of all Turkey’s classical sites. I wandered through the great necropolis, down the grand colonnaded street, and admired the hillside memorial to St Philip, raised where the apostle was marytred.

My time in Phrygia ended rather more happily, bathing among fallen fluted columns in the bath-warm, health-giving waters of Hierapolis’s original antique spa.

Travel details: Jeremy Seal was a guest of Turkish Airlines (020 7471 6666, www.thy.com) and Anatolian Sky Holidays (0845 365 1011, anatoliansky.co.uk). Anatolian Sky can tailor-make trips to Turkey, with a sample nine-night package, including flights, transfers, accommodation and car hire, starting at £1,299pp.

Or try Andante Travels (01722 713800, andantetravels.co.uk).

Sunway (01 231 1888, sunway.ie) offers seat-only charter flights from Dublin to Bodrum and Izmir, on the southwest coast.

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