​Plenty of ferries

We were leaving Istanbul today, heading south to make our way along the coast of the Sea of Marmara. This involves crossing first the Bosphorus, and then the eastern reaches of the sea, over which the Osmangazi Bridge spans. However,the Turks haven’t seen fit to provide a bicycle lane on either of these bridges and we are banned from using them.

Luckily there are a lot of ferries, so we were able to roll onto a ferry just down from our apartment and head across the Bosphorus to Kodaköy.

First stop was for coffee and we discovered the Moda region was an absolute goldmine of cafés. A great coffee and an exquisite almond croissant later we headed down the coast.

In contrast with the bridges, this coastline had a very nice bike path running in a park all along the sea shore. We were able to leave Istanbul in a very relaxed way with no traffic and just a few joggers and pram pushers for company. We even stumbled across an open air velodrome, on which we did a couple of laps.

Then, another ferry down to Yalova and a short trip over the hills to our destination, Orhangazi. We’d decided to camp again, on the shores of the Izmir Gölü lake.

Unfortunately we hadn’t consulted the weather forecast and we spent the evening in a storm and then persistent drizzle in the morning. Still, that’s all the fun of camping.