We woke up quite early on Tuesday in order to make our 7:00 ferry from Istanbul to Bandirma. Ali met us outside the police house at 545 in order to escort us to the dock. We got on the ship and settled in for the 2 hour sailing across the Sea of Marmara. We had set Canakkale as our destination for the evening. Canakkale is only a few km from the ancient city of Troy and was the setting for a movie bearing the same name. In fact the horse built for that movie is displayed in the town centre. We [View Full Entry]

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After leaving Ankara we had a spectacular day of riding through the mountains on our way to Istanbul. The air was cool and the scenery spectacular. We ran into a couple on a tandem bicycle who were from Argentina and were travelling around the world. They were also headed to Istanbul and had just come from Syria. We decided to go as far as Izmit, a city about 100 km from Istanbul. When we arrived, we were in no mood to search for the hotel, so when we passed a police station with the usual machine gun toting cop guarding the [View Full Entry]

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We left Goreme at about 0900 for our first day of solo riding with the Turkish capital of Ankara as our destination. The ride itself was pretty unremarkable, afew stretches of scenery, but mostly farmland. We crossed a few patches of rain about half way through, but it did not last more than 10 minutes in total. At one point, beıng low on fuel, we ventured into a village in search of a service station. (at thıs poınt I am gıvıng up on the dotted i as ıt ıs slowıng me down...) At one quası deserted ıntersectıon, Pat asked the only [View Full Entry]

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We left Osmaniye after exchanging gifts with our hosts there. Pat has almost enough gear to put together a full Turkish police uniform. The ride to Cappadocia was much less strenuous than the previous day's one. The secondary highway we rode one took us through plains from which we could see some stunning snow capped mountain ranges and through a succession of villages that still looked like they would have 80-100 yrs ago, except for the cars. In one of these villages, a farmer was leading 3 cows across the town centre and had to take evasive action with the herd [View Full Entry]

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Just a few more riding pics... [View Full Entry]

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We left Frankfurt Airport shortly after 19:00, right on schedule. Hearing all the announcements on the plane in German and Turkish confirmed that we were indeed headed for an adventure of a lifetime. Up to that point, the whole departure for Turkey had seemed surreal in the hussle and bustle of one of the world's busiest airports. The plane was not full and we were given a 3 seat row all to ourselves. We saw the light of Antalya right around 23:00 and landed at 10 after. The first people encountered were the Visa sales agents. They did not speak english [View Full Entry]

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After returning to the Frankfurt area last night, we left this morning for the Rhine region, albeit at a more relaxed pace then the last few days in the former DDR. Our destination was to be Rüdesheim, a town along the Rhine not too far from the city of Wiesbaden. Upon arrival there, it was pretty obvious that it was Sunday and that there was not a cloud in the sky. People lined the main street while cars and a never ending line of motorcycles crawled by. The town centre is very touristy by German standards. A seemingly neverending maze of [View Full Entry]

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Thursday, May 1st: We travelled from Bad Soden to Neuenhof today. The 200 km ride was somewhat hampered by a 10 km traffic jam caused by a combination of holiday traffic and a construction area on the autubahn. Did we mention we were chauffeured in a brand new BMW? Our hosts, the Beck's, who are old friends of Pat's mom, picked us up and took us to their house in the old DDR for a couple of nights. That evening, in true German fashion, a HUGE meal of Thuringer sausage and pork chops was served, enough to feed twice as many [View Full Entry]

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We drove ourselves to the centre of Frankfurt (sounds like an Amazing Race clue) and found the Zeil, a large pedesrian only shopping area complete with restaurants, fruit and ice cream stands, as well as rummies begging for quarters... I had perfected my "I don't speak german" line when a woman approached us and in near perfect english said "do you have 50 cents for me and baby". After a brief moment of hesitation I let out "Ich spreche kein English". We walked quite a bit, and noticed there were more shoe stores than anything, also, there is a bakery about [View Full Entry]

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We left Saskatoon on time at 1:30 PM heading for Calgary and a 3 hour wait for our connecting flight. So, what do you do in an airport when you have 3 hours to kill? You eat! Fortunately, Calgary airport has a Chili's... The 9.5 hours flight to Germany was uneventful. Although our Boeing 767 was equipped with the latest "on demand" entertainment system. Erin read through an entire book while Pat watched National Treasure before dozing off for a bit. Our luggage was one of the first to come out and, just like on our previous visit, German Customs was [View Full Entry]

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