The day started with the apricot and the anti-apricot. I'm not going to explain this. Be puzzled. We saw a place for sale in Selcuk, a house in the old town, on the hill. It was rather run down to say the least, probably needs a new roof, new floorboards, new stairs, new windows and new doors. It was quite fascinating and certainly had potential, and some of the rooms were remarkably cool which is a benefit of stone walls and floors. At the right money I might have considered it, but the owner really wanted way too much especially since the restoration work needs to be done to meet the strict preservation rules on what is an historic area and this will no doubt mean higher costs to get the place straight. She would have ... read more

I found a new road surface today, something to add to gravel, rock, and the rest. Tar. It is going to be fun trying to get the tar off the bike when I get home, For now I am not going to worry about it. For once we got to go riding without the luggage which is nice, the bike copes well with the luggage but it was good to leave it, and the windshield behind for a day. Most of the ride was fun, apart from the short bit of roadworks and tar, and the urban highway around Denizli. Urban highways are never fun, but are often necessary to get to places. The rest, the vast majority of the ride out to Aphrodisias was on open roads winding through pretty hills and some stunning mountains. ... read more

It was a long and hot ride from Bergama to Pamukkale but all went pretty much to plan in that we did not get lost or have any sort of mishap. We took the inland route via Sahili, more direct and less highway. There were a couple of events of note, firstly roadworks, there was a short bit of unsurfaced road and gravel which returned to a reasonable surface after a few hundred yards, I thought great, through that, then.... Back to unsurfaced road, loose gravel and dust, it just stretched into the distance as far as the eye could see. There was about 10 miles of it. We went slowly, bikes and gravel / loose stones are not a good combination especially when the surface below is uneven. We got through it. I do not ... read more

Today was all excitement. We had a glass of tea at the tea garden then headed for the bike to discover we had a flat front tyre. There was a wedding last night and we guess it was some kind of high jinx. The empty panniers were also opened. Some men came by with a hand pump and the tyre has stayed inflated. The first part of the road was as hairy on the way back as it was on the way out. Then we got a smooth run. After stopping at Behramkale / Assos for a quick take in of the view we found the old coast road beyond Ayvacic, which is attractive although in places all you have to your right is a short vertical drop to the sea. We found a place serving ... read more

It has been an eventful day. Firstly, on leaving Alexandropolis, someone had obviously checked out the saddlebags. Nothing was taken because there was nothing in them. It happened on the past trip as well, in Ancona so maybe it is something about street parking in port cities. We loaded up the bike and after coffee set off for the Turkish border. It all went smooth until we got to the border. Exiting Greece was easy enough. Then Turkey, entry with a vehicle is a multi stage process. Got through the first bit where details of the bike were taken. Then after some back and forth sorted the visas and passport stuff. Then we got sent back to the start because the registration number of the bike had been entered incorrectly. LT07TZX had become LTO7TZX (the letter ... read more