So after a nice but quite strenous hike up towards Mount Olymp I decided the next day to head towards Turkey. It feels like at the beginning of my last trip: I feel that I have to move, sort of a bit restless. I guess it needs some time until I'm in my "travel habit" again and reduce my travel-pace.....
The last night on a camping in Greece shows once more that there is a lot of work to be done until the summer season can start. I think it is really a pity how some people let their places run down as soon as season finished....
The border leaving Greece was smooth and quick. They didn't even want to see my passport. After that sort of a "no-man's-land" for about 500 meters; just heavily armed soldiers on that part. At the border to Turkey it takes a bit longer:
1. control of passport together with some questions
2. control of the belongings/luggage: in my case they did not want to see anything ;-) but it took quite a while to get on to the last point as most of the cars had been fully loaded with goods to bring home to their Turkish families.
3. register of passport (again?), vehicle identification and green insurance card (something specific from European countries).... and again some questions: where from, where to, etc.
As I'm used to border crossings meanwhile I wasn't surprised at all. The only problem I had was a really strong sidewind during the whole time. I really had to be careful not to fall. That would have been something to laugh: "sleeping" SuzyBlue in the middle of the border crossing....
I reached the hotel for that night at Eceabat quite soon. And used the rest of the day to make a little ride-out to see all the war memorials from WW1. This half-island where Gallipoli is part of was place for many hard and men-eating battles as the Allies tried to conquer it. The Turkish had been successful with protecting it but it cost more than 500'000 soldiers lifes. Most of the visitors of these battlegrounds are Turkish but there are also many Aussies and Newzealanders as quite a huge amount of their soldiers died here as well. What a sad history. And it seems that humans did not learn anything from it!!
The next day I was on the ferry quite soon and of course I had to answer several questions; it is absolutely not common here that a woman travels on a motorcycle. But all of the comments had been friendly and encouraging.
Once in Canakkale it took me a couple of turnarounds until I found the hotel. My Navi does not like one-way streets :-) The owner was really nice and managed that my room was ready within half an hour. On their homepage it had been written that they have an own parking. Well. I didn't find out where that was as he told me that it is absolutely ok to leave SuzyBlue on the street just opposite of the hotel. Hmmmm..... I didn't feel really good about that, but ok. The owner of the restaurant right next to my bike assured that it would be safe here. So I changed to my casual clothes and went into town. Just walking around, sitting in a cafe, drinking some Chai (their most favourite drink - a simple black tea in a tiny little glass) and watching people. Something I like most about traveling. It gives you a feeling how these people live. I saw a mixture between traditional and modern dressed women and men. But what they all seem to like: eating sweets.... I've never seen that many bakeries full of sweets before.
The next morning - after sort of a strange night as I could not fell asleep and in the end dreamed weird things - I went down and was really relieved to see SuzyBlue standing there. I've to be used again to trust people ;-)
This days plan was to visit some of the famous historic sights from Greek history. Next to that I found narrow little roads that leaded me through the beautiful and huge countryside, up and down.... a pure joy to drive.
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and I found out that Turkey has not only different Police forces like traffic police, state police, etc. but also a "fake" police. In certain areas they placed cardboard police cars even with flushing lights to prevent that people drive too fast in difficult bends ;-)
The first historic sight I reached was Troy. What a disappointment. Busloads of tourists but "just" some wrotten old stones..... and a Trojan fake horse for the tourists... I guess the more interesting things would have been in the museum. But I didn't feel like spending that gorgeous day inside a museum. So after a short walk I set off again and headed towards Pergamon. Now that looked really different. Even if part of it was rebuilt it gives you a complete different feeling how it had been and how great these buildings had looked like at the time being.
To think about how they could have built such huge towers and columns with the ancient techniques is really admirable.
And I found a nice, shady little camping spot... and again I was the only guest staying there. It's not season yet..... gives me a peaceful night....the prayer of the Muezzin is the only sound that might disturb my sleep early in the morning ;-)
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