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October 12th 2013

Published: July 22nd 2017

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Itchyfeetbc

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Geo: 41.0068, 28.9816

Woke up to fog in Edirne - the first fog we have seen on the trip - likely due to a temperature inversion. Nice drive through rolling farmland until Istanbul. Then the fun began. On a scale of 1 - 10 the traffic in Vancouver would be 1 and Istanbul 10. They have many merging lanes to contend with and drivers are not at all polite. One can understand why they have a campaign dealing with road rage. Everybody is competing and changing lanes. On the drive in I was passing a truck at 120K and had a BMW sitting 2 feet off my rear bumper. He was so close all I could see was his hood - no grille or headlights. Once in the city it was gridlock on many of the streets. The streets can be very narrow and delivery vans just stop in the street to deliver their goods and you have to wait. Needless to say it is an interesting experience. Many drivers here would be losing their driver's licence in BC. Definitely an interesting climax to the drive. We are back at the same hotel and were greeted by our doorman with great enthusiasm.

Weather

We have a room on the top floor with a balcony and view of Topkapi Palace Grounds and the Sea of Marmara. We called the car rental company to pick up the car even though it is not due back until tomorrow morning. We will spend the next few days going some of the places we haven't done yet and doing some shopping. Friends from Vancouver are arriving on Tuesday and we plan to have dinner with them before heading back on Wednesday. Tonight we visited the Pudding Shop Restaurant which was famous in the 70's as a meeting place for young people travelling to and from Asia. There is a bulletin board where people would advertise for rides to far flung places.

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