Day 175: Kavala to Asprovalta

Back in the swing

It’s great how refreshing a rest day can be. Watching the end of the Giro d’Italia it’s interesting to see how tired the riders are after three weeks riding six days per week... and then I think “we’ve been doing that for six months!” They don’t even have any panniers :-)

So, refreshed and rested we were lucky to miss the early morning rainstorm, with the weather staying sunny for the rest of the day.

Olive groves on one side...

Blue coves on the other

Our route took us along the old coastal highway, with olive groves and vineyards on one side and sandstone cliffs and blue water coves on the other. With a newer motorway running parallel there was very little traffic - perfect cycling territory. This was like northern Greece’s Great Ocean Road.

Lunch in a park by the beach

The animal rescue squad were pressed into action today with a tortoise trapped in the middle of the road. It appeared to have made it halfway and then taken fright and retreated into its shell whilst occasional cars and truck fly by on either side. Sarina to the rescue. Maybe that makes up for the family pet that failed to survive their attempts to bring it out of hibernation.

Tortoise rescue  

We’ve ended the day in a relaxed seaside town. It’s still pretty empty, the holiday season starts tomorrow apparently. For the moment it’s just us and a few groups of German tourists.

A byzantine tower

Proper seaside swimming beach

Video: Turkey

Day 174: Rest day in Kavala

10,000 km down

We’ve rolled the odometer over to five figures now with a total of 10054.7km covered so far. All over three continents and 11 countries. No wonder we fancied a rest.

We’ve spent the day resting in our apartment with only a small trip to the beach for exercise.

Relaxing 

Next big stop is Athens as we take another little excursion south to see one of the most historic cities in the world.  

Day 173: Porto Lagos to Kavala

Ready for a rest day

 We’ve been cracking through Turkey and Greece for a while now and tired legs are starting to become a factor. It’s time for a rest day.

Tiger making his way through the Greek countryside

The route today was more rural Greek rural land - sunflowers, grapes, potatoes, wheat, we’re definitely in the agricultural powerhouse of Greece here.

Coffee stop?

We finally descended into Kavala and were faced with this very fine example of an aquaduct - the Kavala Aquaduct. It was probably Roman originally, but the current structure is much more recent. Impressive though.

Now we’re looking forward to putting our feet up for a day, with a nice apartment by the beach to nestle into. It’s also Liverpool’s chance at another Champions’ League title tomorrow, so a good time to be stationary.

Domestic bliss now we have an apartment for a couple of days

Day 172: Alexandroupoli to Porto Lagos

Back roads and serenity  

It was a lovely ride today. We started off thinking the only road was the highway and ignored the red sign with a bicycle on it - maybe it means “bicycles allowed” I thought. A couple of road traffic contractors set me right on that. They pointed us to the old highway, which turned out to be a fabulous, nearly deserted road that wound its way along the same route, but far enough from the highway to ensure perfect peace.  

The traffic management guys who were pretty clear we shouldn’t be on this road  

The serenity of the old highway  

We carried on with this road for several hours, and it’s main drawback was we didn’t see any villages or shops. Finally we had to make a diversion and thankfully found a village shop with a great cheese, tomato, cucumber combo for our lunch. 

Then we were heading across country, away from the highway and into deepest rural Greece. It became a bit of a lottery whether the roads were paved or not and a few diversions were called for to keep the progress smooth.  

Deepest rural Greece

A “Sarina’s eye view”

Then we came up against a bigger obstacle, a ford. It was quite fast flowing, but only six inches deep at most. There was no alternative route so we had to press on. Tiger was willing to give it a shot and managed to pedal across. The Blue Strawberry was a little more conservative and we walked across. We all had wet feet anyway. 

Not our preferred river crossing style

We made it though. Some on foot. 

Our destination was Porto Lagos, a spit of land between a marine lake and the Aegean, which is a wildlife sanctuary and is absolutely teeming with birds. 

I can barely hear myself think for the birdsong this evening. I bet they get up early too!

Heaven for wild fowl

Day 171: Kesan to Alexandroupoli

Kali mera Hellas, our eleventh country — Greece

It was a hard ride out of Turkey. There was a 15 knot headwind and a straight road that kept undulating up and down all the way to the border. It was exhausting, but we got there.

Border control was the usual passport check and raised eyebrows as we cycled in. We were even allowed to go backwards through the process to get back to an ATM to get some Euros.

A fellow cycle tourer we met in no-mans’-land

Euros! That means we’re really in Europe now.

We’re in Greece

We’ve made our way straight to a beach now we’re in Greece, and the contrast with every beach before could not be more obvious. This is you standard Mediterranean beach (well, Aegean, but it’s the same.) There are umbrellas and loungers all the way along and cafés serving iced lattes. This is proper European beaching.

Snack on the beach

Swimming time

We’re also able to camp again. Classic campsite with a hedge around our site, rock hard ground and a load of facilities that aren’t open yet. Well, you can’t have everything.

Day 170: Gallipoli to Kesan

Exploring the Gallipoli Peninsula 

Leaving Gallipoli we found a really quiet backroad along the cliffs. We skirted several military bases — the army obviously still have a big presence here.

We climbed up onto the ridge that forms the Gallipoli Peninsula and had an occasional view of the highway below us, revelling in the track that was almost entirely free of traffic.

Riding up the ridge on a farm track

At the top of the ridge we found a fortification. It had been a Byzantine castle in the 12th Century, but the original Çimpe Kalisi had long fallen down. However, the strategic importance of its location continued, and fortifications were built in the Crimean War and in World War I, some of which still remain.

We had a lot of trouble working out if it had been a gun emplacement or a barracks, but we had some fun exploring.

Tiger spots a snake — it was dead

Exploring Çimpe Kalisi

This is our last night in Turkey, tomorrow we cross the border into Greece. We accidentally chose a Greek restaurant, although the cuisine and selection seems very similar.

A very cute little Greek restaurant that was designed to look like a courtyard of houses. They were all fake.

Day 169: Biga to Gallipoli

We’re back in Europe, for good this time

(No Brexit jokes please) 

After a brief return to Europe in Bulgaria and northern Turkey, we’d headed back in to Asia through Istanbul. We’ve now crossed the Dardenelle Straights and we’re back in Europe, setting foot in Gallipoli. 

A little over 100 years ago, an ANZAC force landed on a beach a few kilometres down the road and discovered the strength and effectiveness of the Ottoman Empire forces on the peninsula had been massively underestimated by their commanders. Amongst their number was my grandad, having enlisted in the ANZACS as he happened to be in Australia when war broke out. 

We know no more about his service, just that he has the Gallipoli campaign medal. I’m sure it was every bit as horrendous as one can imagine.  

The riding was ideal today - 26°C and practically no wind and a lovely ride through rolling hills again. I may not love it when we’re going up, but it’s fun when we’re going down. 

First sight of Gallipoli on the hazy horizon

Setting “tread” on European soil

Gallipoli, or Gelibolu as it is in Turkey, seems like a nice little fishing port. There’s an old castle in the middle and a couple of very busy ferry services to the other side of the Straights. There are also a large number of fish restaurants, one of which will be attracting our custom this evening.

Downtown Gallipoli

Day 168: Bandirma to Biga

Riding across the plains 

A really pleasant day on the main highway across the rolling plains of Turkey. There was very little traffic and we rode through the fields of wheat, olive groves and the grasslands dotted with purple thistles, red poppies and some yellow flowers that I really should know the name of.

Early on, we climbed out of Bandirma through their faux battlements. All of twenty years old I’d say.

More attention from dogs, but they are a lot louder than they are effective (thankfully)

Lunch was in the “church hall” to a mosque, with one of the most tuneful calls-to-prayer we’ve heard (and we’ve heard a lot!) They also had a pretty hi-fidelity PA, which helped.

Day 167: Karaçabey to Bandirma

Some peloton fun at last​

It’s a long time since we’ve ridden​ in a peloton and by pure chance as we pulled out on to the highway from our coffee stop a group of junior cyclist pulled appeared. We got to ride with them for about two minutes before a hill slowed our progress and they rode away from us. Still, it was nice to be back in the normal cycling world for a moment. 

Our brief trip in the peloton

Turkeys aren’t from Turkey (we checked :-), but this one is

We’re getting quite used to the smell of smoke whilst we’re eating now, but I won’t miss it when we’re back in no smoking spaces. It seems the whole of Turkey smokes.  

A stroll to the end of the breakwater in Bandirma  

​Major surprise of the day though was discovering that, for the past two weeks in Turkey, it’s been Ramadan. As a moslem country, I’d have expected this to be really obvious, but it’s only today that we’ve had any problem eating before sunset. It seems the standard of observance here is not particularly high, so most restaurants have been happy to serve us – and many other people, before sunset. Anyway, it’s good to know, I can’t believe it’s taken us this long to work it out!

We had a great dinner amongst many large families who were obviously having their “Ramadan special supper with grandma” or something of that sort.

Day 166: Mundanya to Karaçabey

The southern shore of the Sea of Marmara turns out to be a very attractive region with some fantastic roads. It also turns out to be quite hilly. We had a lovely ride though, even if it took a while.  

Our starting point was the beautiful little seaside town of Mundanya. It had some incredibly cute little wooden waterfront houses. They were exquisite in a “shabby chic“ way, although many were condemned due to being structurally unsafe, which could be a little awkward in the future. 

Beautiful tumbledown waterfront property  

We did some more climbing along the coast road and descended into Tirilye, a smaller little fishing village that looked to be all about olive oil and tourism now. 

The Tirilye main street 

The Strawberry on the pier

Then another climb, leaving the coast now we were grinding up to the main road through olive groves and some olive pressing factories.  

Then our front tyre went soft and it was time for a very pleasantly located puncture stop amongst the trees.  

Tube changing time to fix a slow puncture. Yet another piece of wire from a shredded lorry tyre.  

Winding up through the olive groves

Our destination was then along a main road, and we tucked in to the hard shoulder again. There aren’t many roads up this way, so the highway is the only choice. 

Karaçabey​ is a fairly dull town that isn’t used to seeing tourists. They did have a good pressure wash at the petrol station though and we were able to clean our bikes. Fingers crossed we didn’t fire any water into the bearings. 

More highway riding tomorrow into more remote areas. ​

Day 165: Orhangazi to Mudanya

Damp camping

We were so excited to get our tents out again we didn’t bother to check the weather and we woke to the sound of raindrops on canvas. It didn’t look like stopping for a while, so wet tents were packed away and we set off in rain jackets. 

We had a good breakfast in town and then carried on along the main road.  

As we created the ridge and headed down to the coast the sky brightened and we could remove so wet weather kit. We were also able to head off the main road onto a quieter back road that was much more pleasant. We were winding our way through olive groves before we hit the coast road.  

Drying at last after a wet morning  

In amongst the olive groves

As we headed along the coast road on a cliff above the water it was just like we were on the Esplanade on the Mornington Peninsula. 

The winding cliff top road - “let’s stop at Lilo Café” says Tiger

Photo moment

We stopped quite early today as there doesn’t appear to be a lot of accommodation further along the coast, so we can do a good turn tomorrow and get to another town. 

Day 164: Istanbul to Orhangazi

​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.

Crossing The Bosphorus 

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.

The seaside bike path

Packer Park memories for Tiger

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.

Afternoon cool off in the lake

Video: Bulgaria

Day 163: Rest day in Istanbul

Just cleaning the bikes and doing admin really.  

Day 162: Rest day in Istanbul

Too much walking

For some reason it always hurts a lot more to go for a little walk on rest day than to ride 100km on the other days. Anyway, we saw some stuff.

Istanbul is like the missing link between India and western Europe. You can see the lineage from the cities of Jaipur, Ahmedabad etc, but the small shops have almost all been swept away and a large amount of infrastructure has modernised the city.

Rail and foot traffic get a funky new bridge

Back streets

Suleyman mosque - best when you look up

More ceilings - intricate stuff

Outside the Grand Bazaar

Lunch in a quiet oasis

The Basilica Cistern, built in the 6th Century by the Romans to maintain water supply

They reused a few bits of stone when they built the cistern — and they weren’t too bothered which way up they put them

Video: Georgia

Day 161: Silivri to Istanbul

There aren’t a great deal of small roads into Istanbul, so we spent a fair bit of time on the service road alongside the motorway heading into the city.

We did manage to get off the main road for a big climb — it must have been around 2km at 10% and it definitely was about the limit Sarina and I could manage in one go. Luckily we’d just had coffee and cake before it!

Turkish coffee, cake and turkish delight — a classic Turkish snack

As we neared our apartment in Galata we did manage to get off the main road and started to see some ancient buildings that this city is famous for.

This is the Valens Aquaduct, part of a 1st Century water system supplying Istanbul

We crossed the river (not the Bosphurus, but a tributary that bisects the European side of the city) and headed up another steep hill towards our apartment.

The buildings were very cute all around, but we were less amused by the address system, which didn’t seem to make a lot of sense to us. We spent about ten minutes going up and down the same roads for a while until we decided the best policy would be to sit in a café and contact our host.

A mixture of that, and a fresh looking at Google Maps solved the problem, and we were set up in our apartment for the next two days.

The old streets of Galata

Let’s have a coffee and see if this problem solves itself

Blue Strawberry, Blue Mosque. I know which one I like best :-)

Day 160: Lüleburgaz to Silivri

Riding through the wheat fields of Turkey

...and the textile makes, concrete block factories, grain siloes and ice cream factories.

Last night we headed out shopping for Turkish flags. You find them in all sorts of different shops, souvenir shops, newsagents, supermarkets. This time, walking down the main street there was only one market stall, selling two things, football shirts and Turkish flags. He could keep the Fenerbace jersey, but we now had two smart flags for the back of our bikes. 

We also found a very nice baklava shop - which may be a theme around these parts.  

 “What size do you want love, Turkish flags, come and get your Turkish flags”

Loading up in the morning 

We stayed in a very smart, modern hotel, had a great brekky there and then headed out into the road. 

The forecast had been rain, but it was looking pretty good and we were soon stripping off layers in 29° sunshine.  

Lunch was a “what do you have?” selection. No menu, just “We’d like lunch” in Google Translate. 

Flag on display. The riding was all main road, but still fun. 

This evening we’re in a fishing port resort, so hoping for some food fish. 

Silivri harbour. Not the most picturesque, but we’re getting closer to the Med - this is the Sea of Marmara  

Day 159: Malkin Tarnovo to Lüleburgaz

Crossing the mountains into Turkey

We climbed straight out of the gate this morning, up into the forested hills above our hotel and up to the border with Turkey. As we climbed the rains came and our entrance into Turkey down a steep descent was a wet one.

Climbing up to Turkey

Then the road became very rolling, with a succession of climbs followed by descents. Luckily, we had a bit of a tail wind to help us on our way. It’s a rare thing and we were making the most of it.

Crossing into Turkey

We eventually hit the first town - around 40km into our ride, and stopped for a lovely lunch. By then the rain was tipping down and the restaurant owner turned the heating up and fed us soup, delivering three loaves of bread as we devoured one after another.

Lunch in Kirklareli

We had a brief respite from the rain in the afternoon, but the clouds gathered again later. Luckily, we were in need of emergency calories and ducked into a service station just in time to miss a big downpour. We could sit inside in the dry eating nuts and Magnum ice creams whilst the rain poured down outside.

The rainclouds gathering for round two

We even had time for a hot chocolate before setting off again in a little clearing between the showers.

We’d chosend Lüleburgaz as our destination, more for the distance it was from our starting point that anything else, but it turned out to be a delightful little town. Cobbled streets and plenty of restaurants, plus a beautifully decorated hotel with a plant filled atrium and a very helpful owner. Just what we needed.

More rain forecast for tomorrow.