03.23.22
If you have been following my personal Facebook page, you might know that after many years of not owning a bike I picked up a BMW in Romania and rode it “home” to Antalya in five days. Let’s just say that this Younger Traveler didn’t feel so young, especially since the weather was in the forties (Fahrenheit) most of the time, and the blustery wind never let up over almost 1000 miles. I enjoyed the hell out of it, but it did take its toll on my legs, neck, and arm muscles!
Kathleen and I have been nomads since Feb 2019 and visited 26 countries. We have rented bikes (usually scooters), in many of them, and many times shared the dream about getting our own. As a non-EU citizen I was unable to buy anything unless I got creative, typically by creating a corporation. I didn’t want to go that route but two American friends did that, one in France and one in Bulgaria. We were lucky in that we rented a bike in Romania in August 2019 and had a wonderful experience with the BMW 750GS as well as with the rental company, motorentals.ro, owned by Sergiu Stoica. When COVID kept us out of Europe we still knew we would return, and I posed the question to him about renting “long term,” probably a year, maybe more. He was open to that, but he sold that particular bike but had a smaller BMW 310GS, and we structured a deal with that.
So now we have a bike and a large country to explore! Part of that exploration was my journey back since I came down much of the western coastline of Turkey and we will reverse that trip when we leave Antalya on July 1. But here’s a quick overview of the route I just completed.
Day I took me out of Romania and all through the country of Bulgaria (country #39 for me) from north to south, about 330 km. A fun fact: Bulgaria is the oldest country in Europe and the only country that has not changed its name since it was first established. Who knew?
After riding about 250 miles, 7 hours, I re-entered Turkey, had to go through THREE checkpoints, and stayed the night in the city of Edirne. It was initially just a pit stop but Kat sent a write up showing the amazing mosques in town, so the next morning I checked them out along with the Great Synagogue, which is the only one in town. The mosques were some of the largest I’ve seen and were quite beautiful, but then I hit the road which started at a brisk 40 degrees F and went through some mountain passes which had snow just a few days before. I was watchful of snow on the road and finally hit sea level late in the day and stayed in the city of Canakkale, which I truly loved. It had a great vibe and required a 15-minute ferry ride across the Dardanelles Strait, taking me from Europe to Asia, a weird concept when you think about it. After all, it IS a manmade construct…
The city was very cool in that it had a nice waterfront area which held the Trojan Horse from the movie “Troy.” No one REALLY knows where the city of Troy was, but it is not just a legend and they claim it’s about 30 miles from Canakkale. I didn’t have time to take that side trip, but I did stay in a great hostel for about $7.00 USD. THAT is how I can afford to do this.
The following morning my destination was Izmir, the second largest city in Turkey, and riding into town I felt it. It reminded me (too much) of Los Angeles, and fortunately the weather turned nice, so after gassing up I decided to press on, and made it to Ephesus in the city of Selcuk. If you know your Bible and history that name may be familiar and it has deep historical and religious meaning. And it WAS magnificent the following morning as the day started bright and crisp but still very, very cold. After an hour exploring Ephesus it was back on the road to Fethiye, which I knew was within a one day ride home. That city had been mentioned many times by expats and locals and everyone suggested I check it out. Conditions were not ideal as it was still cold there, and when I left the morning of Day V the wind was worse than ever. Regardless I was able to hug the coast and ride along some of the most magnificent water and cliffs I have ever been on. A biker’s paradise! That last day was 173 miles, but they were some of the toughest as the wind was borderline scary, buffeting from the cliffs inland and the ocean from the other direction.
All this is highlighted in much more detail on my Norm Bour FB page and I have been commissioned to write two stories for a touring bike site called RevNTravel.com. If you are interested I will send you a link when they go live.
