Our last stage on Friday went from Kumbağ to Silivri, which is a city with 200000 inhabitants right outside Istanbul. We had decided that we wanted to avoid the traffic into Istanbul. So instead of cycling all the way in, we had booked a “maksi taksi” that could transport us and the bicycles into the centre. Therefore, the bicycle ride to Silivri was the last one on this trip.
It was relatively short and flat, and we had tailwind in addition. So it was not a physical challenge. Our route planning app Komoot always tries to avoid the biggest roads, which is fine normally. But in this case, we ended up on bumpy or muddy gravel road several times and decided to turn around and take the main road instead after all. In most sections, this road had a wide shoulder to cycle on. So we had enough space and enough distance between us and the cars. Just for the last few kilometres, there was no shoulder and we had the traffic passing by right next to our ears. This was enough confirmation for us that it was a good idea to take a taxi into Istanbul centre.
The total tour in numbers: We cycled 35 days over the last two months. Countries visited: 9 (Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Hercegovina, Montenegro, Albania, North Macedonia, Greece, Turkey). Total distance covered: 3055 kilometres. Total elevation gain: 28717 metres.
This whole weekend I have a project go-live with our Swedish customer. Therfore, I worked from the hotel in Silivri the whole Saturday until seven o’clock in the evening when the “maksi taksi” driver picked us up and drove us into the centre. He almost got stuck with his big vehicle in the narrow and steep roads in Istanbul right before we arrived at our Airbnb. But we managed to push him back into track and arrived around nine.
Today the go-live continues, and the whole next week I will work full time. Then we will have some more time to explore Istanbul in the weekend.
Sunset view from my hotel room in Silivri
Victory beer with Canadian cyclist Nicole in Istanbul
Keşan was, despite the size of the town, slightly boring. There were a lot of döner restaurants and tea salons, but hardly any sit-down restaurants and no bars whatsoever. So having three nights here was certainly more than sufficient. On Monday, we met another cyclist, Nicole from Canada, in our hotel. She was a vegetarian which made finding a restaurant even more difficult, but we finally found one and enjoyed dinner together. Udo is only part-time vegetarian for practical reasons on this trip.
Monday night, we had an earthquake. It was the first time in my life I felt one. All others I previously experienced, mainly in Iceland, were during the night, and I never woke up. This one had a 6.0 magnitude, which was big enough so that I could clearly feel my bed shaking even though the epicentre was 230 kilometres away.
Our second last day of biking would be the queen stage of this trip. Not only did we have 1600 metres to climb, we also had a distance of 120 kilometres to cover. Therefore, we got up early and left our hotel at half past seven in the morning. The air was misty and we were cycling through the fog for a long time. But when we approached the top of our first ascent, we came above the fog and the sun started shining.
After the downhill ride, we were supposed to take a road towards the Marmara Sea, but we figured out that this was a gravel road. So we decided to take a different route which implied a second climb. On the downhill from that top towards Şarköy, we had a spectacular view of the Marmara Sea with a lot of ship traffic on it. From here, we followed a coastal road until, towards the very end, we had to cross one more mountain with a lot of ups and downs. To add to the challenge, we also had to live with strong winds and rain during this climb.
Naturally, we were pretty exhausted when we arrived in Kumbağ. We found a kiosk where we could buy some beer and a restaurant that had quite delicious tavuk şiş (chicken skewers). We are staying in a hotel where we are seemingly the only guests. The owner is an old, very strict lady. She was not happy when Udo entered the reception with his bicycle, nor when he entered the hotel room with shoes. So I had to make the statement that the wind blows differently here, compared to our friendly concierge in Keşan.
Our hotel is not the only one which is empty. The whole town seems to be made for tourists, but there are no tourists here. Hence almost all the restaurants are closed. We do manage to find a good Turkish lentil soup for lunch and something for dinner. But I’m looking forward to coming back to a city soon after three nights here.
Misty startAbove the cloudsMarmara sea with ships visible in the backgroundCoastal roadOn our final climb of the day
We left Alexandroupoli early in the morning because, although it was a Saturday, Udo would have to work in the afternoon due to a project go-live. And we wanted to have enough buffer in our schedule, in case the border crossing would take a long time, or there would be any other delays.
Our last kilometres in Greece were a very pleasant ride. First, we could enjoy the sunrise on our ride out of Alexandroupoli. There was very little traffic so early on a Saturday. And then we left the main road and cycled along some small rural roads in a nice, quiet landscape. The only people we met were a goatherd and his flock (or is it a herd of goats?). His dogs were friendly, too.
After around forty-five kilometres and several mosquito bites, we reached the border to Türkiye. We were not sure first which line to pick because there was one for cars and one for busses and motorcycles. We chose the motorcycle lane first, but changed to the car lane after a while, assuming that checking the busses might take longer time. We managed to sneak in front of some cars, too, which we thought was fair because we were slow travellers the rest of the day. The passport control took maybe half an hour. The following customs control seemed to be the longer process. But luckily, one of the customs officers eventually waved at us and signalled that we were allowed to pass the cars. Therefore, the whole process took “only” around one hour. It makes you appreciate the intra EU and Schengen borders, though, when you see how long you have to wait at non-EU borders. Especially, the queue in the other direction, from Türkiye into Greece was more than a kilometre long and for trucks even longer.
The rest of the day, our route planning app Komoot had planned to partly follow the main road and partly use smaller roads. These would have implied a significant detour though. The main road had a wide shoulder and was, although looking like a motorway, allowed for cyclists. Since it was not to busy either, we decided to save some kilometres and simply follow the main road.
Our first town in Türkiye, Keşan, was bigger than expected. For a change, we are staying in a hotel here. While Udo had to work in the afternoon, I strolled through town and over the bazaar. I bought a Galatasaray jersey. Unfortunately, they only had Osimhen, Sané and Gündogan jerseys. So I bought one without a name and number and need to find a shop in Istanbul that can print Ayhan or Kutucu on my jersey.
Today, Sunday, I’m having a day off. Tomorrow is a working day. So we stay here for two more nights and then continue on Tuesday. Despite the size of the town, the restaurant offer is non-satisfying and bars are practically non-existent. But we have Istanbul to look forward to.
Riding into the sunriseBorder crossing Ipsala (imagine a bike ride from Uppsala to Ipsala…)Mosque in Kesan
On our day to Xanthi, we had some more bike issues to deal with. Udo had his fourth broken spoke on his way to Paralia Ofryniou, and my gear shift did not work as it should after the repair in Thessaloniki. So, we made a stop half way to Xanthi in a bicycle repair shop near Kavala, which we had called the day before so that they knew we were coming and would need direct assistance. The mechanic there, Kostas, was very skillful and fixed Udo’s bike. He said though that once one spoke has broken and you continue riding the bike over a certain distance, that you risk that more and more spokes will break. It would be better to buy a new wheel, which he did not have in stock, but he recommended us another bike shop in our next stop, Alexandroupoli. He also adjusted my gear shift, but it was still not working as it should afterwards.
Just one hour later, I realised that my rear brake was not working properly once more. After some swearing that this happened directly after visiting a bike shop, we stopped next to the road, removed the brake and the brake pads were falling off. Apparently, when I fixed the brake the last time I had missed the hole in the brake pads with the screw that keeps them in place. I’m not sure how that happened really, but we have become so used to fixing brakes by now that the whole process did not take more than five to ten minutes, and we were good to go again.
The rest of the ride to Xanthi was a bit monotonous along a rather busy road. But the town of Xanthi itself was quite nice with many restaurants and cafés. In Xanthi, we stayed for two nights because Friday was a working day.
Day 32: Xanthi-Alexandroupolis (108 km, 799 m ↑)
Our last stop in Greece was Alexandroupoli. We left Xanthi after a coffee and croissant in a café in the morning. The ride to Alexandroupoli was first rather flat, but had one climb towards the end before we reached the Aegean sea again.
In Alexandroupoli, we first made sure to bring our bikes to the bike shop. There, indeed, the mechanic had a new wheel for Udo. And he adjusted my gear shift again, but stated that the new crank I got, did not fit perfectly to my gear shift. So it was difficult to make the shift work smoothly. I will probably have to live with the fact that I have to shift up and down a couple of times before the chains falls into place properly, and eventually buy a new crank again.
While our bikes were in the bike shop, we had a quick salad and souvlaki dinner. And then we headed home to watch Schalke vs. Darmstadt and see the fifth victory in a row.
Tomorrow we will leave Greece and cross the border to Turkey, or should I say Türkiye?
We left Edessa on Sunday. After a quick breakfast and coffee, we passed by the Edessa waterfalls and confirmed that they are quite impressive even for the experienced Iceland visitor.
We hadn’t cycled long yet when we had our first unfriendly dog encounters of the day. The first we got into a fight with was kicked by Udo, but still continued chasing him afterwards. The second one got impressed by the stone we threw at him. Luckily, all other dogs we met that day, we managed to keep at a distance. But it’s unbelievable how often we get into such situations here in Greece.
The rest of the day should have been easy cycling. But at some point my bike started making a very nasty sound. It wasn’t rolling smoothly anymore either. We stopped and disassembled the brake that we thought might be the cause, but it wasn’t. Then we removed the back wheel and cleaned all parts that could collect dirt and dust. Initially we thought that this might have solved the issue, but after a few kilometres, the bad sound came back and got worse actually. I did make it to Thessaloniki, but in the end my bike sounded like it could collapse under me any time. So a new visit to a bike repair shop was necessary.
Day 30: Thessaloniki-Paralia Ofryniou (106 km, 820 m ↑)
My bike got repaired in Thessaloniki. I got a new chain, new crank and new cassette. Today, it was running fine again after the repair. Only the gear shift needs some fine tuning.
I bought two ultra-sonic devices that are supposed to keep dogs at a distance. Today, we didn’t have any unfriendly encounters with dogs. But when Udo tried one of the devices on an angry dog behind a fence, it did not seem to have any effect on it either. So we don’t really know if it would work in a no-fence situation.
Paralia Ofryniou seems to be a typical tourist beach town. There are a lot of cafés and restaurants, but most of them are closed for the season. There is not much to do here in the evening, but we had a nice Greek dinner – as always, we start with a healthy salad and then something with a bit more calories for the cyclists.
Tirana was a nice city that we would have enjoyed during the weekend as well. But on Tuesday we continued our journey to North Macedonia.
The first stage to Debar was going to be the one with the highest total elevation gain so far. We started around eight o’clock and would soon after we left Tirana climb more than one thousand metres.
The traffic was alright today. Tirana was busy, but not too stressful. And for the rest of the day, the roads normally had a quite wide shoulder to cycle on. So we didn’t have to worry too much about the traffic today.
When I planned the route originally, I did not realise that it included a four kilometres long tunnel. Upon further research, we found out that it was not open for cyclists. So we had to take the old road over the mountain instead.
As always, we took some coffee breaks on the way. Around four o’clock we passed the border between Albania and North Macedonia, and half an hour later, we reached our first stop in North Macedonia, a small town called Debar. There was not too much going on there, but we had a nice dinner and went home early.
The workday in Debar was a debarcle, you can say. Electricity disappeared around 10. We first didn’t notice and could continue working with our PC batteries. Internet was still working for some reason. But my PC battery was empty after a while. Our host recommended to go to a bar. You could hear diesel generators running here and there. But it seemed like the cafés only had their coffee machines powered, but nothing else. People were sitting in the dark in the cafés.
The electricity came back eventually, and we could finish our working day. After two days in Debar, we continued towards the next town in North Macedonia, Ohrid. It was another working day, though, so we finished work a bit early and started cycling at 3:15 PM. The weather forecast predicted some rain, but we were lucky, and it was not raining too much on the way. It became dark before we reached Ohrid. The last one hour we cycled in darkness.
Ohrid is situated at Lake Ohrid, a big lake in North Macedonia, and it’s a tourist destination. In Ohrid we stayed for one night, and then we continued to our last stop in North Macedonia, Bitola.
The ride to Bitola was pretty challenging. It was raining in the morning in Ohrid. We went to the bakery to have some supplies for during the ride, took a short photo stop at the lake, and then left into the mountains.
Originally, we had planned to cycle the Trans Dinarica cycle route to Bitola, covering a distance of around 100 km and 1600 metres to climb. But due to the rain, we chose a more direct route, 30 km shorter and half the metres to climb, which was challenging enough because we got warm during the ascent and cold during the downhill rides despite our rain jackets.
In Bitola, we stayed in two separate apartments for the first time, which cost 20 € each per night, which was a luxury we allowed ourselves. We did watch the Hannover-Schalke game together though and admired the Muslic team’s determination.
On our ride to Edessa, we left North Macedonia and reached the Greek border after 15 kilometres. Already before, Udo had his third broken spoke during this trip. Therefore, right after we crossed the border and could dial into an EU phone network again, we googled bike repair shops and found one in Florina, which we called and asked whether they could repair a spoke during the same day. They confirmed.
Florina meant a little detour of ten kilometres, but the mechanic was very friendly and repaired the wheel within one hour, that we spent enjoying a coffee by the river.
After we continued our trip, we had two unfriendly encounters with sheepdogs. The first pack, Udo had already passed, but I had to get off my bike and had a heated argument with them. And the second pack, I passed before Udo, and we both had to shout and explain that we only wanted to pass by.
Due to the delays, we first reached Edessa after it got dark. In Edessa, we enjoyed a nice salad and souvlaki dinner.
Why the long face? Macedonian mountainsMountain panorama 2The North Macedonian flag IRLMosque next to our home in DebarLake OhridOne happy street dogLake Vegoritida on our way to Edessa
