Yes Steve, there are turkeys in Turkey. No Mark, we didn't eat any turkey in Turkey. But we did have turkish tea (and no, it is NOT made out of turkey, or turks.)

The Good
Turkey is an unbelievable place. The scenery is nothing special (except in Capadocia: wow!!! ) (AND THE MOUNTAIN PASSES FRED) (OK, so you got me there, Sharon. Yes, the passes were spectacular, but they weren't any more spectacular than other places we went. They were unexpected though.), but the people are unbelievable. Everyone has so much time, and so much patience, and so much friendliness. During an average day, we were offered tea at least three times, and were generally offered lunch or something like that too. Great!!!

The Bad
Hmm. Not sure about that one. The weather was bad at times.... The second day had massive winds, but that made the sea really spectacular. We got a bit of snow in Capadocia, but easily the worst was the wind during the last three days. We were in the lowest gear, struggling to go down the hills!! Not good.

The Ugly
That is easily the ridiculous sprawl that is happening on the mediterrainian coast, due to package tourism. Massive hotels, with no respect for history, culture, farms, views or tasteful colours. I hate to admit that we were part of the cause! Never again.

We started in Antalya, where we stayed in a fancy hotel: acclimatisation. From there, we biked along the coast for a few days to Alanya, before heading north. The southern coast of Turkey has been over-run by tourism. It is a pity, but not at all surprising, given how much better the weather is here than in western europe.

We had plans for Karaman, but the locals convinced us that there was nothing there, so we went to Konya instead. The mountains were a bit higher than we expected. Our first pass was over 1800m, and the next was higher. There was about half a metre of snow on the ground there, and we were wearing all the clothing that we had with us. Sharon took this photo in the middle of the mountains, about an hour after we made it over the first pass. You can just see me as I'm speeding down the hill.

From Konya, we caught a bus to Capadocia (near Kayseri on the map), where we spent a few days riding around, but it snowed a bit, so we didn't get far. There is so much to see in Capadocia. There are underground cities (the one we saw went down four layers), amazing paintings, and a very crazy landscape. As you can see from these photos, the place is just cool. Incidentally, "Jandarma" is the turkish word for "Police."

Back on the bus, we headed West to Pumacale (between Konya and Izmir on the map), where we saw some more cool ruins, and enormous calcium terraces. The theatre here is one of the best preserved ones around. Very nice.

Few cars, the nicest truck drivers ever, and really good roads. Apparently, the military got bored 50 years ago and decided to make some roads. So now there is a huge, and rather nice, road network running throughout Turkey. There were really only two hazards on the roads and these were:

A) German tourist buses; Large, really fast, and super quiet. They could be renamed Stealth buses. And they don't seem to see cyclists. Maybe they just ignored us, I don't know.
B) The worlds largest sheep dogs. OK if they are not looking after goats (which leaves about3 OK dogs in Turkey)

Cycling in Turkey was fun, with the friendliest people ever keeping us entertained along the way. The scenery changed with every corner and we were surprised not to hear about the gorgeous moutnain passes before.

Turkish people were so exact with their directions and distances and knew how far away things were to the metre! I guess they read the roadsigns a lot?? They were very concerned a couple of times about us undertaking a few of the higher passes, which still had coatings of snow. It was hard to pedal off when they had just told us that it was a ‘problem’ to go down that road, and given us directions to the closest tourist resort. Grains of salts came in handy, (also recommended if you are reading this…).

Taking the bikes on the buses was fine, but we learnt to ask for the price including bikes, and even went as far as making the ticket seller write that it was to include a ‘bisiklet’ on the ticket. Otherwise, the attendants will charge extra for wheeling the bike on.

But really, everything in Turkey is so cheap. I look back at the times when we quibbled over a few million lira and shrink. Out of season you can expect to pay about 10-15 Euro for a night in a hotel room, with private bathroom and all you can eat breakfast! Overnight buses cast around 10 -15 Euro for an 8 hr journey, where as in Switzerland that will get only your bike on the train. Trains are old in Turkey. Just watch ‘From Russia with love’ to get an idea.

People love it when you try and speak the language. No shyte, you say, but you get the feeling the package tourists don’t. A simple “Merhaba” got loads of laughs and replies. Our pictionary skills improved immensely when pronunciations went wrong or our bilingual dictionary failed us.

Vital Statistics:
Local language; Turkish
Days spent here; 22 (6)
Kilometres biked; 1117 (170)
Days with no biking; 3 (2)
km/day: 58.8 (42.5)
Cost (euro/day); 12.86 (48.19)
The figures in brackets are for the second time we were in Turkey; this was just in northern bit, and we only went to Gallipoli and Istanbul.

Next stop, Greece!

Back