Archives de l’auteur : curiouscycling

Week 8 – on our way to the Black Sea

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May 20th – 48 kms (plus 15kms pick-up), Adatepe
May 21th – 61 kms, 1200+m, Atma
May 22th – 85 kms, 1300+m, Erzican
May 23th – visiting Erzican
May 24th – 23 kms, Ahmelti
May 25th – 77 kms, 900+m, Günesli
May 26th – 65 kms, 800m+, Kiliçkaya
May 27th – 50 kms, Caykara

First day of the week started with a good breakfest offered by the family who hosted us. We discussed about our route and learned that it will basically just go uphill. Nice! Let’s eat a bit more then! After some farewell, we started the climb. We had perhaps not even the time to sweat that a pickup stopped in front of us: two miners going to their work site offered us a ride. Few moments of hesitation… Hmmmm, ok! This will spare us 11 kms of uphill 🙂 These nice guys are both working in the mines, as the father of the family who hosted us. We learned this area is actually full of gold and iron mines. When the ride was over, we showed them a picture of the family who hosted us and they recognized their colleague, who was also a good friend of them. Small world (or should we say small Divrigi?).

  • Happy after a nice ride that avoid us 1km of uphill

You think that the uphill is over? No. It never ends. We keep on going up and it was time for our picnic below the rain. A huge Kangal and some curious cows showed up, but no shepherd. One of the cow was actually too curious : she found some old bread we had, that we used to keep for wild dogs. Within few seconds, she ate everything, included the plastic bag carrying the bread. Two plastic bags, actually. We tried to take it off from her mouth, but it was simply impossible. Man VS Cows: we definitely lose. Let’s hope this lovely cow managed to digest the plastic bag, and that she is still ok.

In the evening, it was getting dark when we found a place to camp. Luckily we found a good spot with a gorgeous view.

  • On the road

Next morning we ware awaken by a kind of song coming out from the surrounding mountains. What’s happening? Singing goats? It looked like someone very happy was singing. We prepared our breakfast enjoying the melodies and few minutes later, we saw the first goats and the shepherd, who was indeed our happy singer. It was so nice, he really looked like the happiest person in the world. Actually, it was not only him. We are living a dream, seeing the morning sunshine, wonderful views and having a delicious breakfast. It was the 3 happiest people in the world, sharing the same mountain and sunrise. 🙂

  • Our balcony for the night
  • Wild camping

The day cannot start on a better manner and we felt in a very good shape, ready to climb the coming mountains. We even add some uphills to our route to visit the small city of Iliç. Some workers at the hyraulic dam offered us fresh water and at noon, we found an open restaurant serving the typical Ramadan meal. We had food and lots of baklava. In the evening, we could feel tired of the climbs. We just prepared some delicious pasta and found a good place to sleep, still in the mountains.

  • Wild camping
  • Our garden for the night

The day after the landscapes were absolutly gorgeous. We kept on cycling in the morning, with some difficult uphills, but with the reward of those views. The road followed the Euphrates river. It was very nice to finally meet this legendary river that, together with the Tigris, defined the Mesopotamis, this land full of history. Unfortunately, we also felt some tension in this part of Turkey, perhaps due to the proximity with Kurdistan. Many soldiers, army trucks, and also some police roadblocks. In one of those, the soldiers stopped us, asked us our passports, where we were coming from aso. After a handshake, they offered us a cola and some smiles 🙂 It was very kind, but we also felt kind of weird, to find ourselves in this police roadblock with a fresh cola in our hands… Later, we learned this route was also sadly known as a place where many Armenians have been killed during the genocide. Full of history we said…

  • Euphrates river
  • The police roadblock
  • Uphills. Beautiful hills.

Later, we arrived in Erzincan city. The arrival ws beautiful, as the city is surrounded by snowy mountains. We stayed for two nights in the Ogretmenevi, witch was a good place for a good price. After traveling through the middle of nowhere, it is always funny to arrive in a big city. We felt like if this city was huge. Many cars, buildings, markets, restaurants, food and supermarkets with european food. And alcohol! We bought some wine, good italian pasta, pesto, beers, strawberries and ice-cream. Ready to have a relaxing fatty evening!

  • Arriving in Erzincan
  • I think we bought too much food… Who is going to carry all this?

Usually when we take a hotel to rest we enjoy it until the last minute. What we did again.
After a late departure, we noticed a nice and huge painting of Atatürk face on a mountain. Atatürk admiration in Turkey seems to be limitless! Our progression was then quickly stopped by multiple storms. We counted 4 storms from the moment we decided to stop to the next morning.

  • The 2 pm storm.
  • One more storm?

Next day, the stormy weather didn’t stop. We faced another 2 storms during the day, which was dropping our energy down. We had also a nice uphill to a mountain pass, with very strong wind. The scenery of this climb make it even harder, as the mountains looked quite austere, with several abandonned and vandalized places. The downhill coming afterwards was however completely breathtaking: no more wind, everything was much greener, little hills, even flowers. Life is back! Sometimes it is quite interesting to see how a landscape can utterly change just after a turn or a pass.

  • Bayburt
  • The university of Bayburt and plenty of new buildings.

The spring was definitely here, with lovely flowers everywhere.

We continued our progression through these mountains to reach the Black Sea. From the first time since we started this journey, we met a French speaker in a very small village. Pierre was happy 🙂 Perhaps 5 minutes later, a car stopped and the driver spoke to us… in French! What a coincidence. At least 2 Turkish French speakers in this very small mountain village. The rest of the day was going desperately uphill against the strongest headwind we faced so far. It was also getting cold. Several cars going down stopped when they saw us, telling us we were crazy and encouraging us. A nice guy offered us some corn bread, which looked like a brick. Quite nourishing though, we called it the « Elfic Turkish bred ».

  • As good frenchies, we thought that it was cheese… But it is the famous « Elfic Turkish bred »

We did not make it to the pass when nightfall was coming very quickly. We were quite frozen and tired because of the heavy wind. It was shivering and tired that we found a place to camp below a house in construction in a middle of an empty village. This house provided a welcomed refuge for the cold and strong wind during the night. We slept as babies.

  • It is getting dark…
  • Behind the house that protected us from the wind

Next day was easily the epicest day we had so far during our jouney. The wind finally stopped. There was still 1 hour going uphill in dirty roads to reach the pass of the mountain. This pass was 2330m above sea level.

  • Nice views!
  • Cows in the pass

From the pass, it was supposed to be just a long and nice downhill until the Black Sea, right? Actuality not at all… During 5 hours on the bicycles, we moved only 15 kms. The road was such in bad shape. Probably cool for MTB, but not at all with loaded touring bicycles. Good that this was supposed to be a main road! In a crossroads, there was a sign showing that the road was closed. But it was not clear which one. We choosed the one we could see on our GPS. After some kms going downhill, there were still lots of snow around. The problem was that some of those « névé » collapsed and were actually blocking the way. Impossible for us to continue the road.

  • In the begining it looked funny
  • « Look how big it is », we said…
  • Oups, road is blocked

We need to go back, cross a river, change  the mountain and take a smaller (vertical and worst) road that will lead us some ours later to the city of Caykara.

  • It is good for blood circulation
  • On the right above the cliff, the blocked road by snow

Very tired, we ate a « ramazam menu » and went to sleep in a small ogretmenevi. Can’t wait to finally find the sea again…

  • Zig-zags !
  • Stiff village
  • Other zig-zags
  • The landscapes looked like a mix of Machu Picchu and Avatar movie.
  • Pinhão and Rodolphe, our beloved bicycles

Week 7 – Leaving Cappadocia to the Wild Anatolia

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May 13rd – 23 kms, Aksalur
May 14th – 68 kms, Kayseri
May 15th – 56 kms, Hazarsah
May 16th – 60 kms, Kaynar
May 17th – 85 kms, Kuskayasi
May 18th – 60 kms, Gurukbekir
May 19th – 78 kms, Devrigi

We started this week with an early hike through the Gomeda valley, last one we visited from Cappadocia. Before visiting Turkey, we were thinking about take a bus from Cappadocia to Erzurum. Actually, we were loving this country so much that we decided to keep on going with our bicycles. We’ll take a bus in the futur, if necessary. We then cycled about 20 kms above Urgüp, getting up and having a really nice view on the different valleys. During the last uphill of the day, two kids driving a tractor with a small trailer (yes we know, funny scene rather common in rural parts of Turkey) suggested us a ride to spare us part of the uphill. Lovely, but the trailer was way too small. So we offered them some chocolate and they were the happiest kids we’ve never seen 🙂

  • Our last view on Cappadocia
  • The two kids who offered us a ride

We camp on a nice hill, having a beautiful view on Mount Erciyes.

  • Wild camping. Mount Erciyes is on the right.

Next morning, we got awaken way too early by angry birds – angry magpies actually. We had to go to the big city of Kayseri to see if we could fix the broken screen of Larissa’s phone, which felt. The ride to Kayseri was a beautiful and long downhill with almost every time this impressive Mount Erciyes on the background. However, Kayseri city was rather disappointed – crowded & simply not enjoyable – and furthermore we had to go on the highway to enter inside the city as militaries were doing some exercises on small roads we targeted. We quickly found out that it won’t be possible to fix the phone in Turkey, and then we were actually tired because of entering in this lousy city. So we stayed in a hotel called Ögretmenevi, literally « the professor’s house ». Ögretmenevi is a chain of governmental hotels, offering decent place to sleep with rather cheap price in every city from Turkey. Good tip for travellers.

Leaving Kayseri took us a while, as it was hot, had to stop in a sport shop to find some gas for our stove, bought some groceries for being autonomous for the next few days. This city was just sucking our energies out. After a lunch break in a parc with another friendly turkish guy speaking german and giving us some company, we escaped from the suburb after a difficult 53 kms ride. Back in the wild, we camped in a nice spot, just before nightfall.

  • Camping and flowers

Next day, we found back the lovely gravel roads in the middle of nowhere. As we were cycling on one of this difficult road, a truck stopped when we were pushing the bicycles due to slope >15%. What a truck! It was the ice-cream truck, and the happy driver offered us 2 refreshing ice-creams 🙂 We could still remember his so happy face when he opened the trunk of his truck to search these ice-creams 🙂 This was exactly what we needed as this day was very warm due to unstable and stormy weather. It was actually the beginning of a long period where we had at least one storm per day. We had to stop our day too early due to a big storm approaching quickly on us, finding a shelter in a petrol station. We were allowed to camp in a glasshouse behind the station, feeling wet as the growing vegetables.


  • One of the many storms of the day
  • Best icecream
  • We slept there. 🙂

We then arrived in perhaps the worst part of our journey so far: never-ending false flat plains, with never-ending heavy head wind. The villages were ugly. No tree at all to provide some shadow for resting. Larissa’s mirror broke when her bike felt on the ground during a stop due to the wind. We had a horrible late lunch break as we could not find one single spot under the shadow and/or protecting us from the wind. We named this sad part « the windy plain ». Also, people did not say hello anymore. We do not know if this was because of the wind so they could not hear our salutations. Or if they were just as sad as this area. We celebrated our 2000 kms in the middle of nowhere and cycled 85 kms until we could reach a decent and hidden place to camp. The funny moments of the day is that all the shepherd’s donkeys we saw from flocks decided to run behind us for some reasons. Perhaps the believed we were one of them, laden down as much as they are 🙂

  • Beautiful spot in the horrible windy road

Next day we finally reached the city of Kangal. Kangal is the city where the dog having the same name is coming from, symbol of Turkey and Anatolia specifically. The Kangal looks pretty much intimidating : it is a large and muscled dog, powerful, can easily reach 1m high or so. When they do belong to someone, their owner often add them a pike collars, just to be sure we can understand that the dog is a badass. We saw plenty of them along our road, most of the time they were barking at us like crazy. Sometimes we were willing to pet them, but the fear to lose a hand doing so was still curbing us. So we thought it would be good to see this city. Arriving in the city, we crossed one dog farming place of this little monsters, saw an interesting lego-looks-like castle having nothing to do with the rest of the city, and one « beautiful » status of a Kangal.

  • Lego’s castle?




  • Kangal

We had a Ramadan soup in the city center, and the guys invited Pierre to drink a beer hidden in the kitchen! Did we look so dehydrated? During the discussion, this nice guys told us there are famous fish therapy pools 8 kms from there. We looked at the time and quickly thought « hmmm, this might be interesting to try ». 30 min later, we were in warm source water, getting « cleaned » by multiple little fishes. At the beginning it is not really relaxing: it gives you a foretaste of being devoured by piranhas. It took us few minutes to clear our mind out of this scenario, and then actually enjoyed this 🙂 We ended the day camping in a beautiful spot along a river, having wild pigs as neighbours. We also discovered the flies-that-are-biting-you-without-you-can-feel-anything-and-leave-you-a-5-days-long-horrible-bite.

  • Wild pigs around

  • Happy!
  • Spa with the fishing bath
  • The perfect spot (if you’re able to forget that ther’s wild pigs at 500m and angry flies)

Last day of the week, we cycled to Devrigi city. The road was pretty nice, we had a lunch on a village were Larissa initiated children to bicycle – one of them cried but this is because she was afraid that her sister abandoned her with the bicycle 😉

  • On the road

Arriving to our destination, Pierre had another flat tire. The flat is actually at the exact same location than the first one he had, as the tire got a bad scar and plenty of dust/gravel can come in. It took us a while to properly fix this tube under a lovely storm, and to find a way to reinforce this lousy tire. While Pierre was working hard on it, Larissa sympathized with a kind lady and her 2 hyperactive kids touching everything on our bicycles. Few minutes later, she invited us to stay to her place. After few minutes of hesitation as we were tired after this long day ending with this flat under a storm, we accepted and joined her place which was 4kms away on the top of a stiff hill. We arrived lately to her place but were warmly rewarded : A good diner, a relaxing shower and a comfortable bed 🙂 Thanks a lot Nurhayat & family for your kindness and hospitality!

  • The family
  • Our bed for the night
  • Reparing the 3rd flat tire
  • Divrigi

After this beautiful cycling through the countryside, we deceided to go back to big citys. Black Sea, here we go!

Week 6 – Cappadocia

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May 6th – 62 kms, Aksaray May 7th – visiting Ihlara valley and Selime May 8th – 66 kms, Gosterli May 9th to May 12th – Uchisar and visiting Cappadocia First day of the week is as well the first day of Ramadan. We were slightly anxious about it as we were not sure if we would be able to find food during the day. Actually it was not a problem in the big citys, only in small villages some groceries shops, bakeries or restaurants were closed. We could easily adapt ourselves. This first day was tiring with long uphills and strong headwind, however we knew we will be hosted by Fathi’s mother & grandparents at Aksaray, which brought us some motivation. Aksaray is a nice city dominated by the mount Hasan, which make its arrival spectacular. Aksaray is also at the South West border of Cappadocia, well known to be beside the Ihlara valley. We arrived at our hosts end of the afternoon, soon enough to enjoy discussions (one more time in German), refreshments and awaiting the call of the imam for the dinner. Thanks again Fathi for arranging our stay with your lovely family!
    • Next morning, we dropped our bicycles, took the bus and went hiking through the Ihlara valley. Ihlara valley, also called « the pearl of Cappadocia », is a kind of green canyon, with many troglodytes churches, ending with fairy chimneys and the astonishing Selime cathedral. This 14 kms long valley is quite refreshing, we liked it a lot. The Selime cathedral makes you feel like ants walking through a huge termits mound. Back in Aksaray, we spend the rest of the day relaxing and cooking some börek with Fathima.
    • Next day, we were back on the saddles. Stormy weather was back as well. We stopped to the caravanserail of Agzikarahan, which was unfortunately closed. We had lunch in between showers, so as we tried to cycle. We slept somewhere close to Gösterli, last camping night before few days of rest in Uchisar.
    • The rest of the week was enjoying Cappadocia and its local wine among others. We stayed at Uçhisar, village on top of an hill dominating the valleys. Cappadocia is full of funny valleys/castles/churches having cliffs and stones formed by years of tuff erosion. It looks like forms and cavities coming from another world. Cappadocia is as well known for its many subterranean cities, were people could lived during few months when facing raids from enemies. Actually quite impressive, these cities could have several floors below ground level. It is most likely that many of them have not been discovered due to past underground collapses, or being simply hidden from the outside. Uçhisar
    • Göreme
    • Swords, Rose and Red valleys by bike
    • Zemi valley
    • White, Love and Pigeons valleys
    • On May 12th, we left Uchisar to Mustafapasa, a city in the south part of Cappadocia with other interesting valleys. As we were looking for a place to camp in the Pacarlik valley – which is not that difficult here – a french man coming from nowhere with his jeep invited us to his ranch, installed in a cave carved in tuff with his wife and boy. Beside a nice cave dinner and being able to speak in french, we could sleep inside a lovely shack they built for their guests. Thanks Nico, Hélène and Pablo for your hospitality! Pacarlik valley
    • After this week discovering this wonderful region and visiting, we were ready to hit the mountains and the contryside one more time.

    Week 5 – rural Central Anatolia

    7 réponses

    April 30th – 84 kms, Akköpru
    May 1st – 84 kms, Fatih Yaylasi
    May 2nd – 69 kms, Yesiloz
    May 3rd – 83 kms, Kulu
    May 4th – 52 kms, Sereflikochisar
    May 5th – 57 kms, Catalcesme

    As we left Eskişehir, we arrived quickly in the deep of central Anatolia. We cycled on beautiful gravel roads, which look like a paradise for any touring cyclist : nice curvy gravel roads, gentle uphills, gentle downhills, without potholes, no cars (actually nobody!) and beautiful landscapes. We cycled several days on these roads, moving rather quickly.
    We crossed many fields and find out this part of Turkey is quite rural. Fields, cows and goats. And barrils of agrochemicals. While we get invited by locals of the small villages to drink a cup of tea, we observed that many of the farmers have a cap with the brand of big agrochemical companies. This confirm us that intensive farming is quite practiced here.

    • Gravels!
    • The road and us, no one else

    We remember a funny moment of these days while we were cycling kilometers without seeing anyone on these lost roads : all of a sudden, a car arrived (yes, it is surprising). As the car-bypassed us, the drivers just honked at us with a huge smile (this starts to be common). A few meters later, he turned back, and drived crazyly from the village he just arrived. Well, fair enough we thought. But 5 min later, the same car arrived, with the same happy-face drivers. And then they asked us to stop. They offered us two watermelon/strawberry sodas, were very happy, asked us where we come from, took a photo with us, and then disappeared. It took perhaps 3 mins. Then we were again in the middle of nowhere, with this fresh bottles of soda in the hands, happy, and still getting surprised by how kind Turkish people can be.
    Later, we realized that we were getting out of food. Not good. So we had to make a detour from our itinerary to find a decent village with hopefully a supermarket. We arrived on the village too late, during nightfall, bought some stuff, a local offered us some cola as we probably looked exhausted (it was a soda day), and then realized there was no hotel there. Well, finding a spot to camp during the night is defintely not ideal so we get slightly desperated. As we were asking our way to a petrol station, a gentle guy invited us to his place. He guided us during the night driving at our speed. And then we arrived in the middle of his entire family, who was obviously firstly surprised and susipcious about us, but get quickly very kind. They offered us delicious dinner made from kind of meat, çay, and prepared us a room to sleep. Within few minutes, we felt so warmly comforted. It was touching for us as it was obvious this family was rather poor, and the few they have, they shared it with us.

    • Smooth downhill
    • Our room for the night
    • With the all family

    The next morning, after having shared the breakfest based on some delicious mushrooms with this family, we get back on the small roads of rural Anatolia. The weather was getting windy with lots of not-good-looking-clouds arriving behind us. We had a lunch at the mosque of a village, only place to get protected from a storm. During the afternoon, we were actually always cycling to escape the thunderstorms chasing us.

    • Cloudy weather
    • Happy us
    • Ruuuuunn!

    We arrived on the evening in the village of Yesiloz, where a farmer family kindly invited us for dinner while we were refilling our water botlles for camping. We accepted this invitation with pleasure and these people where really really kind with us. A kind father, a sweet mother, a very gentle grandmother, 4 adorable childrens, an adopted Afghan boy refugee taking care of the cows. Something very kind and simple was coming out these people. They offered us the most delicious traditional dinner with locals and fresh product coming from the farm (again this delicious kind of mushroom among others), eating on the floor (which gave Pierre some difficulties due to his long non-flexible european legs), a delicious home made bread, a warm shower and the most comfortable bed we had for a long time.

    • Traditional breakfest
    • Our lovely bed
    • Larissa with the grandma
    • The farm and part of the lovely family

    After a good night of sleep, we were invited to take the breakfest with this lovely family. We then had to farewell and Larissa was almost crying as this family was so kind. Later, back on our saddles and as we crossed another small village, we could ear « çay! çay! » (=tea! tea!) coming from a small house, which was actually a market. We accepted this invitation with pleasure as we were cycling for about 4 hours without stopping. The owner was very curious about us and willing to discuss a lot 🙂 So Pierre asked: « Do you know this kind of mushroom that locals used to eat with eggs? Because it is very delicious and we do not know what it is ». And the owner to answer: « Yes of course! » and then took his phone. Two minutes later, we understood he asked his wife to prepare this meal for us… It was almost uncomfortable for us to be that invited. Ten minutes later, his son brought a full pan of this delicious dish, the owner of the market dressed a little table especially for us in the middle of his customers, offered us 2 ayrans and said with a big smile « Afiyet olsun! (=enjoy your meal!). Later, we learned this « mushroom » is called Domala mantari and is a kind of truffle, which means it is like finding jewels from the ground. We feel so lucky, because it was so delicious and precious!

    • Supermarket stop!

    We ended this day arriving in the ugly city of Kulu, sleeping in the only available hotel, which was ugly & REALLY dirty, so as the city. What a contrast with the beginning of the day. Let’s say it was a way to balance 😉

    The next morning, we escaped this shabby hotel as quickly as possible. So quickly that we forgot to give back the key’s room. Nevermind, we found someone on the road driving on our opposite direction to the city who accepted to bring back the key to the shitty hotel 🙂 We were then approaching the Salty Lake (Tuz Gölü), second biggest lake of Turkey where 70% of the salt consummed in Turquey is exctracted. As we were refilling our water bottle on the mosque of a village, we were one more time invited by locals. But for a german style coffee this time! Indeed, many Turkish people have spent years of their life working in Germany, are speaking fluent german and brought some habits from germany to their country. We never thought our german skills will be so useful here 🙂 After good discussions, liters of coffee and sweet milk rice, we left, cycling somehow excited by too much coffein towards the salty lake. We stopped on the lake to enjoy the landscape, the salty water, the surreal light coming out of the lake. Time was actually flying as we enjoyed, and we got one more time surprised by nightfall. As we were cycling to the city of Sereflikochisar, a driver stopped and indicated us a hotel to sleep, which was actually well appreciated 🙂

    • Want some salt?

    Last day of the week still on the small roads of Central Anatolia. The weather was changing a lot and we had difficulties to find a spot to camp. We finally found some trees to be less visible from the road and get some protection from the heavy wind. Problem: few minutes after we decided to camp here, some guys came with chainsaws to cut the trees! Perhaps some refugees as we saw some camps? We will never know. This trees were actually the only wood available miles around, and we understood these guys used it to make fire to cook/get some heat. We felt a bit uncomfortable, as we were thinking that someone might come back during the night with their lovely chainsaws. Sounds like an horror movie right? Well, we slept, and we were just awaken in the middle of the night by a huge storm, which covers our tent and bicycles of mudd. Nice!

    • Our bivouac after the storm – mudd spreaded everywhere
    • Common friends in Anatolia

    Week 4 – Anatolia + Turkish hospitality

    6 réponses

    D25 – 42 kms, Bursa (04/25/2019)
    D26 – 40 kms, Aksu
    D27 – 62 kms, Kinik
    D28 – 72 kms, Eskişehir
    D29 – Visiting Eskişehir

    Now it’s time to leave Istanbul, after a week in this wonderful city. We took a ferry to avoid the trafic and enjoy our last day seeing the Marmara sea. After many reflections regarding the itinerary to take – Turkey is so big with a lot to see, Black See, Mediterrannean cost, center Turkey – we finally decided to head to Bursa and later Eskeshir direction Cappadocia. A tour through non touristic, in some rural parts. Original, with loats of locals and almost no one speaking english. It’s the way we like to travel, and we really want to see Cappadocia.

    As we arrived in Bursa by night, we realized this city is actually quite big (>2 millions of people) with quite some traffic. We got slightly lost. All of a sudden and coming from nowhere, a gentleman – Erdogan – arrived on his rusty bicycle, asking us if we needed help/food/whatever. He accompanied us for the evening, invited us for some delicious food, showed us the right roads to take until we reached our host, Ayson place. We actually had to take the metro as it was already late and takindg the highway in the middle of the night wasn’t exactly our dream. Erdogan came with us, talked to the people from the metro stations to allow us to get in with our bicycles, insists to pay our tickets. He refused any money and was a kind of a guardien angel in our way. He just left us when our Warmshowers host welcomed us. We were wordless to thank him when he left. Have you heard about the Turkish hospitality?

    That night, we were received by Aysun and her lovely familly. As we arrived late, we just talked a little bit and then we felt asleep. The next day, we had a delicious breakfest with all the family. Than we spent the morning visiting Bursa and enjoying a turkish coffee with Aysun and her beautiful daughter, Lorin.

    Bursa is a beautiful city, full of trees. Its proximity with the surrounding mountains gave the city the nickname of « Bursa the Green ». Bursa has also a very nice and antique blue mosque, attracting many people. It was also the first capital of the Ottoman Empire.

    • Spring!
    • Inside the blue mosque
    • Bursa’s blue mosque

    After made our farewels to Aysun, we followed her advice and took the road to visit a very small and picturesque village part of the UNESCO, Cumlikizik. The village is indeed very nice. And full of visitors coming from all over Turkey.

    Later, while we were looking for a spot to camp on the evening, some dogs run after us – common scene here and we are used to it. However, one of these dogs seems to be so happy, was not barking at all, and followed us running like crazy behind us during 10 kms. At the beginning we wanted this dog to leave, but he was so friendly that he actually gave us some company for the evening. This lovely dog stayed with us the entire night, watching on our tent and bicycle. He was just loosing control when he heard some shootings – probably hunters – and wanted to enter in our tent. No way.

    • The dog who adopted us

    Awaking the morning, the dog was still here, happy to see our morning faces. We tried to escaped from his company by giving him some bread, but he was still following us. We said goodbye and left, feeling very sad for not being able to adopt him. Luckily – or sadely actually – the road was down hill and the dog did not manage to follow us with the speed we had. He then probably came back to his stray dog life, sad but so common in Greece and Turkey. We are lucky to have association taking care of abandonned dogs and cats in western Europe.

    We deceided that we were going to avoid the highway. The problem is that the secondary roads were in the middle of the mountains.The itinerary went then 1100m uphill on a quite stiff and direct road. We are happy to see that there are many fountains along the roads and villages, with clean and drinkable water.

    • Green Turkey

    While we were cycling and enjoying the nice countryside during the late afternoon, a car stopped and called us. It was a farmer named Hussein, who invited us to share a tea with him, his wife and his dogs. Drinking tea – called çay in Turkey – is perhaps one of the most cultural activity here, and is drinked at every moment of the day – morning, lunch, break, diner, evening, everytime. Turkey is actually the #1 of global tea drinker, above China!
    As we were discussing with Hussein, he allowed us to camp on his garden. Later during the evening, he showed us how to prepare yogurt, white creamy cheese and Ayran from raw milk he just had from the village cows. Very instructive and gastronomical evening 🙂 This cool place is the Baran organic farm.

    • Camping at Husain farm
    • Home made Turkish yogurt

    Sunday arrived. Husain, the owner of the farm, told us that they were serving a home-made breakfest on weekends. We had nothing to eat and we thought that it might be cool to taste all his organic products. We had a delicious breakfest, full of good food. While we were eating, we talked to a family. In the end of the meal, the owner said: « My friends, you are invited by this family for your breakfest ». Once again, impossible to argue, they really wanted to pay for our breakfest. The generosity of Turkish peopl is very touching. Thank you again!

    We took the road a little bit late and with some extra kg. I think that it was a problem for our tires. Puncture-proof tires? My ass. We had our second flat tire of the trip, not even after 1000 kms. Pierre’s rear wheel got flat on km 987. Well, actualy the piece of glass is so big that we can understand it damaged the tube, even with our heavy duty tires…

    • Second flat tire
    • Sneaky piece of glass

    Due to the fact that Turkey is developping quickly, many roads are not mentionned on our GPS. By mistake, we arrived one more time on a highway, where we celebrated our 1000 kms, just before a thunderstorm. Yes, what can be more da1ngerous for a cyclist than cycling on a highway? Cycling on a highway during a thunderstorm obviously! Well, it was not funny. Actually, after a flat tire and being wet from the sotrm, we were really tired.

    • Highwaaaay to Hell

    But, one more time, we were lucky. Fortunately, we arrived on the evening in Eskişehir, wamly welcomed by our kind Warmshowers hosts Melmet & Fathi, who offered us a warm shower, cooked a delicious dinner, laundry, and so kind and cool company.

    • With Fathi & Meltem
    • Cat eating cucumber. What else?
    • With gooses!

    The next day, we spend just visiting the city, discovering the « buva », a drink made of fermanted corn and weat. We also ate some pastery, kebabs and borek. Eskişehir is a very beautiful city, with an historical neighbord, with lots of students, very open, with many bicycles also. 🙂

    • Ottoman houses
    • Turkish delight
    • Ottoman houses

    Our hosts were great, very warm, openminded, smilling and kind. We stayed in their place for 2 days and were really feeling like home. On the evening, we welnt out for dinner and had the best künafe so far 🙂 Künafe is a delicious dessert, made with hot cheese, pistachios, usually served with icecream. Larissa was almost crying, because it was sooooo delicious. We went back home with our bellys full of good food and have a good resting night.

    • Miam!
    • Big ass Künafe

    Week 3 continued – Hello Turkey + Istanbul

    1 réponse

    D16 – 66 kms, Haliç

    After having crossed the border at Ipsala, we were directly on the highway to Istanbul.
    We never thought we would stay on this highway because, you know, it’s a HIGHWAY, with lots of cars, going fast and not that romantic with a bike. But we actually stayed in this road because it is relatively safe and direct – due to the bad weather we had in Greece, we got « late » on our schedule.
    Here some background as Turkish highways seem to be a delicate mix of modernity and picturesque:
    – The roads are in perfect condition, clean, easy going, no holes, no mudd, no gravel, no whatsoever, with a very large sideroad allowing to feel us more or less safe.
    – You can find many interesting vehicules on Turkish highway : tractors, farmers with their flocks, cyclists, runners, disabled people in chairwheels, donkey carts
    – Even the Turkish Cycle Tour (= equivalent to the Tour de France, or the Giro in Italia) is cycling on the highway. At one moment, we were very surprised because there were no cars on the road. Then we started to see some policeman closing the highway. After it, we saw lots of cyclists and support cars with bicycles on it. Than we figured out that we were alone on the road thanks to them.
    – It is still a highway, meaning noisy and many vehicules = tiring
    One inconveniant though is to find a place to rest : from what we have seen, there is no resting area on this road. As nightfall was coming, we decided to ask to a restaurant if they knew a place we could sleep. The owner welcomed us, but could not speak one word in english or any other langage than turkish. We understand that we will have to learn some Turkish to communicate. We don’t know yet, but there’s a language that will help us very often: the german (!).

    • Turkish Cycle Tour and the highway just for us

    D17 – 75 kms, Tekirdag

    We headed to Tekirdag, where we evaluated the options to arrive in Istanbul. It was already clear we did not want to go to Istanbul by bicycle to preserve our lungs and lives. Two options: either the train or the bus. We rest in a coffee to think about it and enjoyed our first Turkish delights. After quick discussion with locals, the bus seems to be more conveniant and frequent than the bus. Also the train station to Istanbul is 18 km North from here. Decision is taken quickly: we will take a bus next day so we won’t arrive during the night in this crowdy city. We are happy to see that people are very kind, friendly and willing to help us. We rest in a fancy hotel of a popular part of Tekirdag.

    D18 – 16 kms, Istanbul

    The bus dropped us to the huge bus terminal, where we are still wondering how come so many buses can fit in this place. First emotion : crossing the city to arrive to our guest house. Even though we have many fancy apps supposed to propose us nice and quite itinerary, we had to cross a quite dangerous highway and others not friendly roads. Cycling through this city is definitely not a funny experience. When you are not getting honked by cars or buses, you are getting stuck in the tourist crowd.

    In front of the Blue Mosque, freshly arrived in Istanbul.

    D19 to D24 – visiting Istanbul

    Arrived in Istanbul, we wanted to take a week for « vacation ». There is so many things to see in this city that 6 days won’t be too much. We dropped ou bicycle at our guest house and turn ourselves as real tourists. We won’t write too much here as we did typical touristic activities, among others:

    Sultanahmet

    Blue mosque

    Aya Sofia

    Gülhane park. Its’s spring! It’s full of tulips 🙂

    Süleymaniye mosque

    Main mosques tour and Fatih’s district

    Topkapi palace

    Yerebatan Sarnici (basilic’s cisterne). It’s a incradible place. At first it was… Well, we do not really know, maybe a temple? A garden? A home? Than, someone decided to build a basilic in this place. After it, the Byzantin empire needed water. So, this basilic became a cistern. It worked for some time, and after it was forgotten for many centuries. One day, a seller of byzantin antiquities redisocovered it. People didn’t care much about it, and this place became a huge trash. In the 1980’s, the gouvernement decided to restaure it and it was transformed in a turistic musee. Basilic, cistern, trash, musee… And you, why are you affraid of changing? You can be whatever you want. 🙂

    Bazar district

    Archeologial museum

    Galata & Taksim

    Nargile and çay on rooftop

    Üskadar & Kadiköy

    We were also very lucky to meet Pierre’s colleagues, who generously welcomed us and gave us some good hints on Istanbul and Turkey. Can & Seref invited us for a nice lunch just beside the Bosphorus on the Asian side – perfect view. Later, and after getting stuck in Istanbul public transportation (take the metro, just never ever take the wrong bus), we were warmly welcomed by Yusuf and his beautiful family at his place for a traditional turkish diner and some raki. Good food, good company and good discussion. We felt very lucky for all this moments shared. Thanks a lot Can, Seref and Yusuf for all the time spent together 🙂

    After a week of rest and visit, we’re ready to hit the road again. More to come on Turkey soon!

    Week 3 – bye-bye Greece + recap

    3 réponses

    April 15th – 53 kms, Monastiraki
    April 16th – Turkey border crossing

    Breakfest with our hosts Dino & Eleni : käse brot, wurst, gürcken… Are they Greek or German? Most likely both, just like Larissa is drinking her french red wine with brazilian sweet concentrated milk. Today the rain has stopped. But we won head wind instead of! At least it eases to dry 🙂
    As we are cycling toward Alexandroupoli, we see many archeological ruins along an old national road : no cars and rather direct. In Alexandroupoli, we have a nice lunch in a trattoria suggested by Dino: Elysée. The owner is a good friend of Dino and welcomed us with XL cups of Uzo. We enjoyed the place to work on some administrative stuffs.
    During the evening, we met Charles, another French, cycling from Marseille to Istanbul. We discussed a bit and then farewelled, as he booked an hotel to rest and we decided to advance a bit. As we were looking for some water, a very gentle lady stop her car and asked us if we needed some help. With some audacy, we said we were looking for a place to rest. Jackpot! She just said « follow me » and led us to the female club of the village! Dry place, water, heating system, kitchen, toilet, privacy and funny pictures on the walls – it was perfect. Thanks Antonina!
    This was our last night in Greece, allowing us to leave the country with good memories.

    • Sunset on Greece
    • Last cost of Greece

    Next morning, we enjoyed the place to do a bike maintenance before leaving. The road was then quite straight until the border. As we moved through the different controls, a kind Austrian driver came to have a talk with us, giving some tips on Turkey and offered us chocolates 🙂 It took us surprisingly easily 1 hour to cross this frontier, in Ipsala.

    Next to come in Turkey!

    • Ipsala border crossing
    • Happy us

    Recap

    Distance travelled in the country: 689 kms
    Flat tires: 1 (Larissa, km 380)
    Frappé: +10
    Nights with locals: 6
    Bivouac: 6
    Hotel: 3

    What did we like?
    – Café frappé. Even though it is make with lyophilized coffee, the frappé is really a Greek patented drink and part of the country identity.
    – Fresh water for free with coffee in the restaurant.
    – Easy to communicate – almost everyone speak english or german.
    – Beautiful landscapes despite the rain.
    – Drivers taking care of cyclists on the roads.

    • Frappé!


    What did we dislike?
    – Abnormal rainy weather for the season. We spent 2 weeks in Greece, we were easily soaked or wet during more than the half time spent. Barely dry.
    – Villages were quite empty. Most of people we met on the streets were people revamping the hotels/apartments for the high season. Where are you Greek folks?

    What is growing?
    – From the parts we have been cycling, we have seen many olive groves, grapes, oignons, cotton fields, goats and sheeps (feta!).
    – Most of the fields where ploughed though.

    Curious facts we learned:
    – Greek langage has 5 differents way to write « i ». And it is always pronounced the same!
    – Even though the economical situation of the country is getting slowly better, Greek people seem disappointed with the economical situation of their country. Many youngs we met are not trusting their government anymore and are planning their lives without counting on government’s help. Sad but true.
    – For some reasons (likely environmental and economical) there are several ghost cities in the country: place where roads, electricity and water supply have been installed, but not houses. We cycled close to 2 of these ghost cities.

    Week 2 – rainy Greece

    1 réponse

    April 8th – 91 kms, Stravos
    April 9th – 38 kms, Orfani
    April 10th – 50 kms, Nea Irkalista
    April 11th – 24 kms, Kavala
    April 12th – 54 kms, Xanthi
    April 13th – 42 kms, Porpi
    April 14th – 56 kms, Mesti

    We can now say it is a shitty weather. Non stop raining. Never mind, we have the confirmation from a nice couple that we could stay for one night at their place. It is at 91 kms from the place we are and more than 1200 D+, but we decided to go there – we haven’t met that much Greek people so far and we never say no to an invitation. We finally arrived at their place quite soaked and tired, but what a welcome! Danis and Athanasia are so kind we could barely hope for better : traditional Greek diner, Uzo, Greek wine – good food, good company and good discussion. Plus the must for all biking travelers: a nice and warm shower. And a nice dry bed. What else? Laundry service! Thank you so much Danis & Athanasia for your hospitality, kindness, advices and smiles – you really recharged our battery on many dfferent levels 🙂

    • With Athanasia & Danis
    • Stravos harbor
    • Rainy lunch

    Awaking up the morning : really shitty weather, it is getting worse. We spent easily two hours during our lunch break at a bus stop, drinking some tea and waiting for the rain to calm down – it never happened. Now on all main roads there are big puddles of water/mud. But the funnier part is on the small roads, that we use to take to avoid cars and trucks traffic (BTW, driving with lights on when it is rainy seems to be dependent on Greek people’s mood) : here it is getting really muddy as no asphalt. Larissa got the first flat tire of our journey. Obviously under the rain and on a muddy road. We found luckilly a kind of abandoned farmer house with a roof in an olive grove to fix it on a relatively dry manner. Later, we followed the instruction of our kind host Danis to reach a nice village. The shortcut he advices us was unfortunately simply not passable as completely flooded, so we had to take an other way. Too bad: our bicycles got completely stuck in the mud. Really sticky mud actually, so much that it broke Pierre’s front fender.
    Nightfall was coming and we were soaked covered with mud. We had to stop to remove the biggest part of this damn mud and fix the fender. Hopefully a nice lady from the neighbourhood saw us and offered a hosepipe to clean the bikes! So lucky! Pierre managed to fix the fender somehow – it is now crooked but will do the job. Night is there. Let’s move to reach the village. We crashed at a hotel, soaked, tired but at least with relatively clean bikes. And, one more time, we were lucky : the hotel was very nice, with a heatting system to dry our stuff (and ourselves). We had a shower, a good dinner and went to bed for a great relaxing night.

    • Muddy
    • Broken fender
    • Wet friend
    • 1st flat tire

    Still raining the morning, so we stay in our hotel to dry all our gears and rest. Rest a lot, read and relax.
    Once weather calms down, we cycle to Loutra, an abondonned thermal station where it seems some hippies are living there. Once arrived , there are indeed some hippies welcoming us. The place is interesting, but kinf of shabby though. But well, it was so nice, a beautiful place and for free. At the end, we enjoyed the thermal source, had a lunch and left right afterwards. Interesting place though!

    • Loutra
    • Loutra
    • Loutra
    • Loutra
    • Loutra

    Luckily, the sun was back for a couple hours, the road was beautiful following the cost, and we found a nice spot to camp with a wonderful view on the see.

    • Bivouac and sunny morning – drying time

    After a relaxing and wet night, few kilometers pedalled and we arrived in the nice city of Kavala. The sun is back today and it changes completely people’s mood, our mood. Everyone is happy, specially us.
    We are amazed to see huge amount of pollen getting out all the conifers along the road. We thought about all the poor allergic people, this might not been an easy period for them.
    As we visit Kavala, we found a nice coffe offering a wonderful view on the city, where we stop to work on the blog and to deal with some administrative stuffs. Kavala is a nice little city full of history, with an aqueduc, a fortress and marks the end of Macedonia region.
    Hitting back the road, we passed by the old harbour, and crossed very typicall taverna. It looked like such a nice place… Shall we keep on going, enjoy the good wether to make some km? Or just take our time and rest after those difficult rainy days? Under the charm of the place, we decide to have a traditional Greek dinner on the harbor, and to stay one night in the city. And it was sooooo goooooddddd!!!!

    • Kavala’s aqueduct
    • Kavala
    • Kavala
    • Pollen everywhere
    • Threatening sky

    Next morning, our beloved friend the rain is back. Aaah we missed it so much. We stop on more time under a bus stop, waiting the weather to improve. But well we get used to it, it never gets better. We finally hit the road as we will be hosted tonight by Georgia in the city center and we are very happy about that. And what a nice meeting! Georgia is a very intelligent, nice, funny and cool person. She hosted us (and our dirty bikes), gave us a shower, a good dinner, some beers and a great company. It was a lovely evening. The only problem with this kind of meetings is that it’s always hard to say goodbye…
    Xanthi marks the first city of Thrace region, that we will cross until Istanbul. From what we have seen, Thrace is rather flat with some hills on the sides, many industrial zones and definitely a marble quarry area.
    Funny fact: Xanthi is wellknown for their famous chocolates named « Karioka ». It is a dark chocolate suffed with praline and nuts. What is interesting is that a « Carioca » is as well the name of the people from Rio de Janeiro and surroundings area in Brazil. The ethymology roots of Carioca would come from the indigenous Tupi dialect meaning something like « karai » (= white) and « oka » (= house). This word means roughly « house of the white poeple », due to the fact that Rio’s bay was one of the first place colonized by Europeans, French people among others…
    This meaning and the black chocolate speciality brings us to nice discussions. Like the stereotype of Brazilians, that would have a chocolate colour and the expression like : « Oh, but you don’t look like a Brazilian person! »

    • Xanthi
    • Xanthi’s market
    • With Georgia

    One more morning under the rain. We start to love it. Hum, not really that much. After a long breakfest with Georgia and further nice discussion around Greece, we left this wonderful host.
    Just leaving the city, we met Gert. What a character! Gert is Dutch and could easily be named « the Pedalling Dutchman ». First, he is rather aged, travelled with his bicycle his ass off, he’s incredibly positive and generous, funny, musician as well, with the heart on his hands. We have never seen such a laden bicycle. You can find everything on Gert’s biycle: a cast iron pan, spare tires, a grill for bbq, and the must : an accordeon ! It is tue, we are never too much loaded on a bicycle, Gert’s understood this very well. Gert is doing a tour of Europpe from Nederlands until Istanbul, then travelling back to his home country. Sometimes he’s playing music to people and earn some coins. Very interesting guy.
    We shared a lunch, a dinner and a bivouac spot together, having very good food cooked on his iron cast pan, and friendly conversations and music. What a night!

    • Gert playing a morning song
    • Gert’s bicycle!
    • With Gert

    Last night of the week, raining almost non stop. Our tent get flooded one more time.
    Breakfest with Gert and then hitting the road toward Alexandroupoli. Now we have no more rain but heavy head wind. We are moving as slugs, it is discouraging. It’s difficult, but we’re getting stonger, more organised and our asses do not hurt anymore.
    As we are following our GPS to avoid main roads, we are stopped by a road completely overflooded by the recent heavy rains. No way to cross this, we have to go back. Pierre’s fender is suffering one more time and showing some weaknesses, not sure how long it will last.
    After an invigorating coffee welcomed by such a gentle lady offering us some delicious home made food and water, we continue pedalling until one of Gert’s spoke broke on the rear wheel – this poor wheel might be overloaded with the accordeon and extra stuffs 😉 Poor Gert! But staying positive, he has spare spokes and will fix this quickly. We say good bye to each other though as we have to move further – we are getting late on our schedule.
    As we thought we will reach Alexandroupoli today, we stop in Mestli village to ask for some water. We are actually welcomed by Constantin – Dino, who invited us to his place for a dinner and a dry place to sleep : his garage! Very kind, Dino and Eleni are both retired Greek people having spent +30 years of their lives in Germany. So we disscussed tonight in German! We never thought our German knowledge would help us during this journey, but it actually does quite a lot. Thank you Dino and Eleni for your hospitality and kindness!

    • Garage camping
    • Oups, road is flooded
    • Windy road
    • One more monastery
    • With Dino & Eleni
    • Cotton trailer

    Week 1 – Halkidiki Peninsula

    1 réponse

    April 1st – 15 kms, Thessaloniki
    April 2nd – Resting and visiting Thessaloniki
    April 3rd – 50 kms, Neo Gounia
    April 4th – 62 kms, Osios Arsenios
    April 5th – 54 kms, Torone
    April 6th – 35 kms, Sarti
    April 7th – 46 kms, Livrochio

    After a very short night, Geoffroy dropped us to Baden Baden airport. Last good-bye. Here we are. We arrived in Thessaloniki airport like zombies.
    While we were assembling our bicycles back, a curious cop came, firt asking us our passports. Then, he added « Nothing to see with police paperwork, but what are you doing?? » So we explained our plan. Always funny to see people’s reaction : he was quite suprised and said « Sometimes some people are biking here, but never like you! ». Before leaving with a smile, he gave us some good advices to reach Thessaloniki’s city center.
    We arrived 15 kms later to our host’s place, Su, from Warmshower network. Su is Turkish and working as a journalist. She is a very nice and cool person. She let us sleep for 3 hours before sharing a dinner with her and a Greek friend, Christin, who gave us a short greek lesson.

    • In the airport…
    • Comfy place to assemble our bicycles

    Second day, we just enjoyed café frappé, visited Thessaloniki, and started to realize what is our plan for the next 9 months. We had a good traditional restaurant, Igglis, with Uzo and Greek cheese. Miam!

    • Thessaloniki
    • Thessaloniki
    • Street art
    • Thessaloniki
    • Thessaloniki

    After a relaxing day, we felt refreshed and relaxed enough to hit the road.
    We started our journey with a 50 kms day, testing our material, feeling the bicycles, and trying to communicate with Greek people.
    By the way, we are surprised to see how empty are the villages we go through. All houses are closed, we hear nothing, we see nobody.
    Not sure if this is an effect of the economical crise, or just a rest before the high touristic season. Or both?
    We found a nice spot to camp in the countryside close to Neo Gounia with a view on hills. Temperature is still coldish : 5°C during the evening!

    • Common scene in Greece
    • Nice gravel road

    Next morning, our asses start to hurt. Let’s hope it is just a matter of getting used to being sat on a bicycle saddle all day long.
    We decide to head on the « middle leg » of the Halkidiki Peninsula : Sithonia.
    The greek villages we cross are still rather empty. Sometimes we have to wake up a sleepy dog having a nap in the middle of the road. They usually wake up all of a suden, then chase us like crazy while barking as hell – always funny.
    During the evening we struggle somehow to find a place to sleep. We first ask to a gas station if by any chance they could accept us on the bottom of their garden. No way, and fact they do not speak one single word of english doesn’t help. Then we found out a monastery is nearby, Osios Arsenios. Let’s try the monks! Arriving on this very quite place, we are welcomed with a hot tea and some cookies. The monk who welcomed us ask us to wait, he will discuss the possibility for us to stay closeby – as soon as we are a couple with one women & one man, it is obviously clear that we could not stay inside the monastery (only for men). We are allowed to sleep just at the entry outside the monastery, and invited to come back the next morning. Beautiful view on the bay!

    • The Monastery
    • The Monastery

    After a fresh night, the breakfest is offered by the monks: home-made Greek cookies, olives, bread, fruits and Greek coffee. We left the monastery happy with some eggs, a book of the Saint who founded the monastery (very kind, even though we do not necessarly need to have extra load in our paniers!) and lucky Saint pictures (!). Let’s hit the road blessed!

    The day after, little rain during the night and morning. It is actually the beginning of a looong wet & rainy period.
    We wake up with the tent partially flooded, always nice.
    While we were pedalling under the rain, a weird construction catches our attention on the map: it is Kriaritsi Ghost City. A building project of an entire village initiated 10 years ago, but which never ended for some reason. Asphalts roads, bridges, water pipelines, electricity, everything is there but no houses! It looks like a huge asphalt labyrinth. We thought this was an effetc of economical crises. Later, we were invited by Angelo for a frappé and some cookies. He explained us this project ended as it wasn’t in accordance with some laws, mostly environmental ones – nothing to see with the crise. We decided to rest in a village at a guest house to get dry.

    • Sarti
    • Ghost city

    Last day of the week : more rain. We spend the morning at the hotel. Small step, we stop at a coffee to see the rain falling. The grandma owner cooked us some bread pudding, exaclty what we needed to continue pedalling under the rain. Thank you little Greek grandma! Later in the afternoon, the rain finally stopped. We were luky enough to get a nice sunset and even a beautifull spot to camp. It was next to an abandonned castle, in a hill, in a wonderful beach… Dream camping!

    • Refreshing
    • Diner place
    • Greek chapel
    • Nice bedroom
    • Sunset
    • Where is France? and Brazil?

    FAQ

    2 réponses

    In this section we will try to answer the most common questions that are raised whenever someone see us with our bicycles and stuffs, sweating like pigs.

    This one should be updated frequently, depending on the inputs we will get along the road and comments accordingly.

    Why do you do this?
    Perhaps the most frequent one. We do not have a clear answer. Why not?
    There is probably as many good reasons to do such journey if possible on a lifetime, so as many to do not. It is our choice, can be somehow egoistic as we will be far away from our families, friends and colleagues during 9 months, but we believe our world has probably more interesting things to show than the routine we used to live during our regular life styles.
    We could also add: because of endorphins! Pedaling heavily weighted 8 hours per day, we just feel like doped Tour de France’s cyclists.

    Are you not too old/young for this?
    Sure, we are not the youngest doing such things. Due to lives counstraints, it was not possibe for us to organize such trip before, even though it was stuck in our minds already quite some time ago. We finally had an opportunity to realize this project, and we decided so.
    This being said, we do believe we should do this now that our legs and bodies are still working (more or less) properly and not during retirement.
    Actually, it is never the good timing. First you have to finish your studies, then you don’t have money, they you start a career, then you have children, then debts, blablabla, then you are retired and have to take care about grand-children, then you are dead. Right?

    Is it safe to travel in such countries?
    What should we say here? We are living in France, Strasbourg city center, where a recent attack killed several people – we could have been easily one of the victims. There is bad people everywhere.
    And there is as well good people everywhere. We will go through countries that have a bad reputation in the common minds and we will have for sure to be vigilant. But we do not believe it is specially dangerous – we are not burning heads taking foolhardy risks.
    For further details on countries safety along the Silk Road, please check the below Caravanistan website, which is simply the reference website for us:
    https://caravanistan.com/safety/

    Why this blog’s name?
    Easy one: have a look at us laden down as donkeys and you will probably ask yourself who are these guys and get curious about us.
    Also we love to learn new things and staying curious. This is one of the reason we have decided to travel through the selected countries: we do not know nothing about these! What is growing there? Are they listening to Jean Ferrat as well? What do they eat? Which kind of underwear they have? What is their culture?

    How will you communicate with people you will meet?
    We are able to speak Portuguese, French, Spanish, English, some German and some Italian. Which is completely useless in the countries we will visit. So we will use our good old mouths, hands & smiles. And it will be as well the opportunity for us to learn few words in new langages. No risk no fun.

    Why on a bicycle?
    Travelling with a bicycle is slow enough to enjoy the different places we go through, and fast enough to visit several places. Also, we feel more close to the people we meet. The bicycle easily generates conversation and exchanges with locals. Lastly, because of endorphins!