Saturday, 05 May 2007
going to Turkey by bicycle
We want to arrive in Turkey now, sooner rather than later. We have overtaken this cyclist once before, his destination must be Turkey, too. And what nationality is he?? He is French. (We saw the French colors on his bicycle bag.) One last time we fill our Diesel tank with the cheap Greek Diesel at 0,93 EUR. The owners are very welcoming and invite us for a cup of ice-coffee. We also fill our drinking water, wash the rims, and then we are ready for the adventure TURKEY.
Passport control at the Turkish border
At the border we have to surmount several checks. The first customs collector asks whether we carry a motorbike to which we reply yes. He wonders where it is and we show him the garage. He smiles. Now he directs us to the passport control. Here we get the stamps into our passports. Then we walk to the customs inspection. The motorhome and motorbike registered into Herbert's passport. Then we go to the 4th place who stamps and confirms that we passed the customs control correctly. The 5th and last one controls whether all his predecessors worked correctly. Thank goodness there is little traffic at the border today. Thus we needed about 1 hour.
Turkey, we're coming !!
In the first village we stop to withdraw some Turkish money from the bankomat, we cannot make out what the the rate is. The road is wide and quite good with slight disturbances.
port of Gelibolu
Arriving in Gelibolu, we decide to spend the night here, too. Here the officer Mustafa Kemal saved Istanbul in WW I and the Turks from the clutches of the allies. This made this town at the north-east exit of the Dardanelles Straits famous. Today this town has a busy ferry port, and only in high season the beaches are crowded.
a mighty breeze gets in our noses
There are strong winds at the straits today with the foam lashing against the kai. The is much bustle in the port and we feel very fine. The displays of the restaurants are full of fish. So we go inside. We especially love the starters . For the night we settle at the lighthouse at the cliffs. From here we have a grand view at the Dardanelles.
first contact with Turkish cuisine
