Day 87 - Arnavutköy to Istanbul

48.7 km - FINAL TOTAL 4,483.0 km - Route pedalled.       Relive Video (with pictures)

Video of the day: Europe Day 87  

We are safe and secure in Istanbul, Turkey.   

We decided to leave early because we were a bit anxious about the cycling through Istanbul. I remember from my time in Istanbul 14 years ago about the many hills the city is built on and how steep the walking had been.

The first 15 kilometres were fairly easy. Not much traffic on a Saturday morning in Arnavutköy and then a dirt road. We got to ride side by side, shared the road with one car and half a dozen cows steered by a dog.

Spotting the white minaret, we looked forward to our last chai stop with the guys in a rural setting. It is quite interesting to hear engaged conversation come to a complete stop when we walk in and resume shortly thereafter. From my seat, I could see the start of our final 2 kilometre climb.

On one of her ‘wait for the old guy’ halts, Hélène looked ahead on the side of the road and spotted a small turtle. That was her second turtle of the trip. 

We also encountered our first horse and wagon also going the hill. A very steady climber, that horse was pretty quick and almost caught up to Hélène. The change from rural to urban was instantaneous and we were in heavy traffic.

As you can see in ReLive there was quite a bit of downhill which was nice. We also had the wrestling with the rebar that brought Hélène to an immediate halt with 13 kilometres from the finish. We were so lucky to get that sorted quickly. 

We left the easy riding of the main artery to swing right, uphill to pass beside the Palace of the Porphyrogenitus. We got a turn by turn opportunity to experience the neighborhood's narrow and steep streets.

From there, we passed a number of large and impressive mosques on our way to our final stop on the Sultans Trail, the Süleymaniye Mosque. Because of strict dress regulations, we were not able to visit the inside of mosque so we focused on the surrounding grounds.

From the mosque, it was but a short 1.5 kilometre to the hotel. We finally made it to the hotel almost 10 1/2 hours after leaving Arnavutköy, very satisfied with what we had accomplished over the last 87 days. It was nice to be told to go check in and our luggage would be looked after.

Behind us the Süleymaniye Mosque, Istanbul

I am writing the blog(June 22, 2025) while sitting on a wooden bench facing down a very steep street. I keep sliding down the bench. I could use a seat belt!   

I'm sitting facing Hélène as well as the slope of the hill

This will be our last blog update.  A statistics/lessons learned page will be published once we are back home and we will send an email to let you know it has been published.

Day 86 - Arnavutköy

Total so far 4,434.30 km                       

Video of the day: Europe Day 86                     46 Left to pedal

Today we rested and spending our last night on the Sultans trail.  Tomorrow we reach our goal for this trip.

Our lunch spot today

Airport area appears larger than the town of Arnavutkoy

Day 85 - Kabakça to Arnavutköy

 47.7 km - Total so far 4,434.30 km - Route pedalled.      Relive Video (with pictures)

Video of the day: Europe Day 84   & Europe Day 85                         46 Left to pedal

We are safe and secure in Artnavutköy, Turkey.

We could not get an early breakfast so we had to leave much later than we wanted. We assumed that it might not be that bad since we had only 47 kilometres to ride.  We could not have been more wrong. 

We started climbing as we left the village and it is was pretty much up and down all day. In the rural areas, the traffic consisted mostly of large trucks and some cars. We got a lot of encouragement “horn tooting” from construction trucks whether they were passing us or passing from the other direction. We stopped a few times for chai in villages and scored free chai at kilometre 17.6 . We also had a nice lunch of soup and rice at a tiny restaurant of 3 tables. 

Enjoying chai and learning some Turkish

Then we hit the built up areas. Still the same climbs and with more aggressive drivers and traffic lights. Having to resume a climb from a standing start at a traffic light is such a horrible sensation.

We encountered generous people who paid for our chai again, stopped to give us a bottle of cold water, ran after us down the street to ask if we needed help or stopped next to us on the road to give us a bag of mini chocolate muffins. 

I (Daniel) was exhausted by the time we reached our destination. It was by far one of the hardest days we have had on the adventure so far. We had done hills before, we had ridden in the mid-30 heat before, we had climbed hills in busy urban traffic and descended steep inclines with precious little shoulder on the side of the road. We had a horrible combination of all four factors in the last 15 to 20 kilometres and brutally exhausting doesn’t even begin to describe how tough it was. Riding into Sofia was a picnic compared to the last push today. Hélène had more enjoyment than I did. All I can say is ebike on the next big adventure! 

We went shopping for beer last evening and that was an experience. Only stores that are outside of the magical radius can sell beer. Inside the store, the beer is kept out of sight behind locked doors. There seems to be a disconnect between urban and rural Turkey not unlike what we experience in Canada.

Stray cat hoping for a snack

Day 84 - Saray to Kabakça

 58.2 km - Total so far 4,386.60 km - Route pedalled.      Relive Video (with pictures)

Video of the day: Europe Day 84                         92 Left to pedal

We are safe and secure in Kabakça, Turkey.

Not much of a warm up this morning as within a kilometre of leaving the hotel we went up hill. That was pretty much the story the entire day. A lot more climbing than we had done to date except maybe the ride to Tuttlingen on Day 25. 

We had our now required morning chai break and for the first time in a while, we had to pay for it. We snacked on our favourite Dutch cookies made in Istanbul. 

The breakfast of champions in Hélène's left hand.

Lunch was a bit of a let down. We had hoped to get something from the local hole in the wall restaurant but there wasn’t one. Hélène dashed to the BOK grocery store and came back with 2 yogurts and 2 chocolate bars. 

Bringing in the yogurt cleared out the place

A fellow Dutch cyclist saw our bright orange pannier covers from a long distance and decided to catch up to us. It says a lot about how visible we are with those covers. It also says how slow we are with all the stuff we are carrying. We will let you know his name as soon as he emails us since for the life of me I cannot remember his first name. He rode with us for a while and decided that we were too slow for him and just took off. It was very impressive to see him pull away effortlessly as a recently retired 66 year old.

We got tooted at a lot today mostly by big tractor trailers hauling gravel to who knows where. 

We got to Kabakça at about 5 pm and completely famished. We stopped pretty close in the middle of the town busy area looking for a restaurant. A very astute gentleman figured out what we were doing, he kissed his finger tips and pointed in the direction of the restaurant. We followed his tip and had a cheap and cheerful supper. Turns out the owner has a cousin living in Toronto and plays hockey.  

We stopped in a small store and asked for beer. The owner, a nice lady, indicated she could not sell beer because of the building located next door. Same issue as we had in Edirne. She indicated the “market” is where you buy beer. I have carried an emergency “beer can” since Belgrade and I thought I might have to crack it open tonight.

The building next door to the little store

On the way to our lodging, I spotted empty beer cases outside the BOK market. The emergency beer would survive another day and get closer to Istanbul.

We are spending the night in a renovated outbuilding near the old train station. We discovered that the owner of the place had only one key to get in and that the key was inside the building sitting on the small table. For the last 83 days, the only way we got to lock a door was with the key making nearly impossible to lock yourself out. Here as soon as you close the door it is locked from the outside. It was hilarious to see a guy show up with tools to let us in. We resolved the problem ourselves by lifting the screen and reaching in to the key on the table.

Tomorrow we have another “bicycle climb fest” just like today. A great way to cleanse the body!

Day 83 - Kaynarca to Saray

54.1 km - Total so far 4,328.4 km - Route pedalled.      Relive Video (with pictures)

Video of the day: Europe Day 83                         156 Left to pedal

We are safe and secure in Saray, Turkey.

We left around 7:30 to get a head start on the heat. We had spoken to Jim, from the UK, and he and two other cyclists had done just that leave very early but it turns out it completely messed up their sleep pattern. When we met him in Edirne, he was still having issues sleeping. I have enough trouble trying to get a decent night sleep due to my coughing so the last thing I need is to make things worst by getting up much earlier.

We started off on the main road with the idea of using the Sultans Trail route to get a break from the traffic. We skipped the opportunity at the first junction and stayed on the road. After our breakfast stop, we had enough of the traffic and decided to take the Sultans Trail connection. As expected, it was a dirt road which is okay but we also had an encounter with big and very unfriendly dogs showing upper teeth. We have an ultrasonic dog deterrent device but it does not work on all dogs in a pack. That was the second encounter of the day so we decided to go back to the main road.

We had many more than usual people honk their horns, wave and/or give us the thumbs up. That included folks in cars, large transport trucks and everything in between.

As we got to the top of a climb, we spotted a small building that we thought might be a fruit/vegetable seller on the other side of the road. It was a Jandarma  (police) station. They were waiving us to them. What do we do? We decided that it was best to go see them as it is nearly impossible to do a fast get away on touring bikes. As we joined them, they gave us water and led us to the back of the building where we found shade and a place to sit. They returned with a cold bottle of Fanta. Once done, we shook hands and took a picture. Another pleasant and unexpected encounter.

When we got to Saray we were famished. Hélène had identified a large park area and made our way there. We found a bench in the shade and a donair shop across the street. 

This lady showed up and started to speak English to us without hesitation. She was from Istanbul and went to school in Switzerland where she studied different languages. Rose chatted with us about her personal life and life in Turkey. 

Day 82 - Kirklareli to Kaynarca

 33.6 km - Total so far 4,274.30 km - Route pedalled.      Relive Video (with pictures)

Video of the day: Europe Day 82                         214 Left to pedal

We are safe and secure in the village of Kaynarca, Turkey.

I was pretty easy leaving Kirkareli as it was mostly downhill until we hit a big climb. It was a tough one and even the trucks had to use low gear. At the top, we did a left hand turn, leaving the main road behind snd settled down on a quiet country road.

We pulled into our first village looking to get our morning fix of chai. We spotted the place, lots of shade, many tables and a number of older gentleman sipping chai. We roll by, stop and lean our bikes against the stone wall. There is lots of chattering and as soon as we appear, move towards a table and sit, the chattering stops. You could have heard the proverbial pin drop. The owner takes a step towards us and as I look at him I say “Iki çay” (2 chai). He smiles, leaves and returns with our chai. The chattering has resumed but is pretty subdued. A younger man stands up and asks: “Where you from?” Canada I tell all. A general AHHH is heard from the assembled and the chattering restarts as if we weren’t there. We could not pay for our chai, once again on the house. On departure, we got a big wave from all.

We were going to repeat the above at village number 3 but could not. The village looked deserted. We spotted the usual place but there was no one outside. Hélène got off her bike, walked up the two steps, opened the door and asked: “Is the anyone here?” No reply. At that very moment a car pulled up with two gentlemen inside. One came to talk to us in Turkish, we replied the usual. He went back to the car and got water bottles. He told us to follow him to a table. The second person in the car joined. A third person showed up out of nowhere and person one asked him for 3 chais. Then another person showed up. 

Person one turned out to be a veterinarian (vet) who travels often to Canada to visit firms that produce bovine sperm. He had a trip coming up in the next couple of weeks to Toronto and a side trip to Niagara Falls. We had a Google Translate chat. He too refused our money for the chai. 

We got back on the bikes, ran into a shepherd and met up again with our vet in Kaynarca who guided us to a restaurant for a quick bite. 

We finally made it to our lodging for tonight, a small A-frame cottage next to a pool. There were some issues at check-in. It was the business that wanted up front payment a few days ago. Again things were resolved in our favour.

Tomorrow we have a 60 kilometre day to Saray. We will have a few decisions to make since we are a bit ahead of schedule. 

Day 81 - Edirne to Kirklareli

63.2 km - Total so far 4,240.70 km - Route pedalled.      Relive Video (with pictures)

Video of the day: Europe Day 81                         246 Left to pedal

We are safe and secure in Kirklareli, Turkey.

Since Hélène and I are not feeling well, it was decided that we would forgo the Sultans Trail route and take the most direct route. 

Cycling through Erdine was done quickly.  The D100 road we were on went from a boulevard to a highway with a huge sign indicating no pedestrians, no horse and buggy and no bicycles allowed. We did about 1.5 km on the forbidden highway before we got to the side road that would get us to the intended route, the D020 road.

The D020 is a four lane highway (90 kph) with a large shoulder to accommodate farm equipment making it less stressful to cycle. What struck us the most is that the landscape and rolling terrain reminded us so very much of cycling Saskatchewan in 2015. The hills were a bit higher and there were quite a few of them so we could not see as far as we could in Saskatchewan, other than that pretty similar. 

We stopped for çay (chai tea) with the guys in Häskoy and did lunch in Inece in a place with no guys, two plastic tables and a couple of chairs outside. On the way into town we encountered two barking and growling errand dogs and the same thing on the way out. There were three errand dogs near where we had lunch and they weren’t at all bothered with us.

After lunch, the temperature had climbed from the mid 20’s to the mid 30’s and the wind had picked up quite a bit. It was more of an effort to pedal but that headwind was refreshing on the downhills.

We got to our hotel at a reasonable time, found a store that sold beer and chips and we are now chilling. We still feel like crap but we are done cycling for the day.

Tomorrow we have a short day as we head to Pinarhisar.