Turkey - Georgia
Going to discover Turkey, Georgia and their history
Turquie - Géorgie, les étapes
From Diyarbakir to Batman
11 juin 2024
We set off at around 8am this morning in pleasant weather. A few bumps at the start. The real problem is that I’m taking small roads and the layouts aren’t always reliable ^^ First joke : at the end of a path, it’s closed by a large gate with a padlock. I get out of it quite easily because - I’m not sure I’m the first - I noticed that the barbed wire along the road had been raised a bit earlier. I can easily push the bike without even having to remove the panniers. Second joke : in one (…)
Visiting Diyarbakir
10 juin 2024
Once I’d recovered from the tiredness of the night on the bus, the visit to Diyarbakir became very enjoyable. The Kurdish town offers many treasures : seemingly endless ramparts, a 10th-century bridge with ten eyes, a large mosque with a superb courtyard and a remarkable carpet-covered interior, a caravanserial transformed into a souk...
The ten-eyed bridge (ten arches) crosses the Tigris, an immense river that originates in Turkey and flows into the Red Sea after joining the Euphrates 1900 (…)
From Göreme to Kayseri, then with bus to Diyarbakir
8 juin 2024
I leave Göreme around 9am. In Kayseri I first have to find the otogar. It was a smooth ride, though my pleasure was slightly spoiled by the bike shoes that hurt my feet. A thunderstorm is forecast for today but for the moment it’s fine. I have lunch around midday about twenty kilometres from Kayseri.
I book my ticket for 200Tl less than if I’d booked online. No problem with the bike ! Very happy that everything was going so well, I set off to visit Kayseri. There’s a very small historic (…)
Göreme, Kaymaklı, Urgup, fairy chimneys
6 juin 2024
Wednesday Visit to the Göreme Open Museum. Interesting. Here, as elsewhere, prices are catching up with inflation and it costs €20 to visit the church of Toplaki and the whole museum. There are many churches in the museum. Note that, in theory, you’re not allowed to photograph inside them ^^. The last church on the tour costs €6 to visit. I thought they were exaggerating a bit and I didn’t go.
Thursday I get up in the middle of the night to watch the sunrise over Cappadocia in a hot-air (…)
From Aksaray to Göreme
4 juin 2024
After a royal breakfast, we set off at 8.30 am. The wind is still blowing, but as the road is hilly we can hide from the wind on the hills.
On the road I find two more caravanserais, one known Ağzıkarahani near Aksaray, the other Alayhani I hadn’t seen mentioned. Neither can compare with the well-preserved Sultanhani, nor with its size.
We climb a little, it’s no longer steppe, and it’s greener.
A small source of anxiety, I said to myself that I had to withdraw some money and I don’t know (…)
From Konya to Sultanhani then to Aksaray
3 juin 2024
In fact, it’s two stages. Yesterday I stayed 3km from Sultanhani and today I visited the caravanserai and then went to Aksaray.
Yesterday the road was almost straight and flat, with a headwind on the last half of the journey. Today, a shorter route but a very unpleasant headwind. The surrounding landscape isn’t very pretty : if the crops weren’t systematically watered, they wouldn’t grow, and where there’s no watering, there’s nothing but arid steppe. Even the wheat is watered !
This (…)
Visiting Konya
1er juin 2024
I’d read a bit of information on travel blogs and had several objectives for today : visit the Mevlada museum, find the tourist office, visit the wood and stone museum and see a sema (whirling dervish) show. The Mevlana museum is truly magnificent. It’s free to visit and is also a place of pilgrimage to honour the founder of Turkish spirituality. I took the audio guide to get some explanations, but you can’t listen to everything. You look at it, it’s beautiful. It’s already very busy in the (…)
From Beysehir to Konya
31 mai 2024
We set off at around 8.30am after an excellent breakfast. I leave the main road, as planned, but with a little apprehension about the state of the road. I see on the map that after a village the route seems to be on a tiny road. But it quickly becomes gravel. The path leads to a dam and at the dam the path meets a road in perfectly good condition. It’s just that Open Street Map isn’t up to date. After the dam the road remains in excellent condition and passes through a village that isn’t on (…)
From Ormana to Beyşehir
30 mai 2024
I have breakfast at the hotel. I tell myself it’s a long way to go, but it’ll pass. Just as I’m about to set off, the hotel manager comes to chat with me and give me some advice about the rest of the route.
There’s only one real climb at 1330m, even though we’re already at nearly 1000 m. On these national roads with a good surface and fairly smooth slopes, it’s all smooth sailing. I arrive in Derbucak at around 1pm and I’m halfway there. I go for lunch in one of those little restaurants (…)
Antalya to Ormana (Ibradi)
29 mai 2024
I set off at about seven o’clock this morning after searching in vain for my bike computer. After looking for a while I finally remembered exactly where I put it before... I left it in the previous room. Then of course I didn’t need it, so I forgot about it. In the meantime, the house has been tidied up, the drawer emptied and... maybe the counter will come out again, but after I’ve left 🙁 The stage is quite long and a bit hilly. I swallow the first sixty kilometres quickly, then it starts (…)