Advertisement
Published: October 27th 2010
Edit Blog Post
Day 14 Saturday 9th October 2010 50 mls
Woke up to a nice morning and had a good breakfast before setting off. Today it included baked potatoes, which were very tasty, cheese, bread, tomatoes, cucumber, olives and yes boiled eggs.
After 2 miles we started a steep climb for 4 miles up to the main road to Antalya. About 5 miles along this road I was stopped by several young Germans walking with massive rucksacks asking the way to Olympus. they looked most dejected when I told them how far it was. This was a busy road but quite wide and traffic was no problem. I stopped for chai at a small roadside cafe and was joined by a local young rider of about 25 who was working in a nearby hotel for the summer. He was due to return to his family 500k East of Antalya in 10 days time by bike and was asking for advice on touring. He had a load to carry but only had a lightweight road bike with 23mm tyres. He had a lot to do, if he wanted an easy ride. Caught up Peter Oz later on and rode through the two tunnels with
him - I am not keen on tunnels, with or without lights since fast moving vehicles cannot see you easily and you are so vulnerable. We got through unscathed and eventually arrived at a roadside cafe and saw some meat being cooked but they would not let us buy it since it was only for the locals. They wanted us to go next door to a part where bus loads of tourists were being shepherded at silly prices. We refused and left to eat further down the road at a place overlooking the sea. Marginally cheaper and a fantastic view and guess what we had our first chips. Leader Peter J and some others had passed us so Peter Oz, Julia and myself were left to find our way to the hotel in the old town several miles away on a very busy city road and a complicated route. We challenged the traffic and won, arriving at our really nice hotel in a pedestrianised are, which had been recently refurbished. I asked the owner how anyone ever found it since it had a sign outside calling it the Secret Hotel. It was an old property with antique furniture built like
a labyrinth and with a very helpful owner. We went out into the town along the streets selling mostly good quality tourist things. The harbour was particularly nice with many pleasure boats and local cruises busy with people of all nationalities.
Sadly we packed our bikes into their bags ready for the return tommorrow.
Day 15 Sunday 10th October 2010
Today we had a quick look round the old town and one last look at the old harbour before departing to the airport back to Istanbul. I had problems with the booking clerk at Antalya Airport, who insisted in booking me to Istanbul instead of straight through to Manchester and could not be swayed. This meant that I had to collect my bike at Istanbul and put it in storage overnight at £13 and a hell of a lot of lugging a large 23kg bag with no wheels around the airport twice.
Peter Ozborne and myself had another half day in Istanbul and visited the fish market at the docks at night, which is something else, the likes of which I have never seen before, except the massive fish market in Sydney perhaps. We went to our hotel late at
night and all the street hawkers were out. I bought two pairs of socks for 45p - bargain.
My overall impressions of Turkey are very good. Pleasant warm weather, unusual scenery in Cappadocia, beautiful coastline on the mediterranean, lots of historical buildings and old crafts still taking place, but most of all the people are very nice, generous and very helpful.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.085s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 14; qc: 28; dbt: 0.0524s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Bill Honeywell
non-member comment
Turkey
Excellent report Richard - sounds like a great place but I still think you are slightly mad. If you had a CV it would say 'Can get a free cup of tea anywhere'!