Motourama Part 30: The Long Road To Istanbul

Hello family, friends and followers! As we didn’t manage to reach Istanbul in the previous Travel Story, due to an unfortunate turn of events, we’re setting out to try again.

After the opulent breakfast at Alexander Beach Hotel and Spa, that had us full for the rest of the day, we readied Phoenix and Falkor for the day on the road. The Turkish border awaited, and beyond that, Istanbul, so we set off bearing east posthaste. As Alexandroupolis is only 45 km from the border, we arrived there in what felt like no time, even though the complicated tiered street layout leading out of Alexandroupolis had us backtrack for a couple of kilometres to find air for our tires. It was slightly frustrating to see a fuel station with an air compressor virtually right next to you, but no way of going there, because it was on a byroad behind dividers. Okay, rant over.

Waiting at the border crossing – not for us though.

We were both a little excited for the border crossing because of the political tension between the Turkish leadership and most of Europe in general, and Germany in particular. We needn’t have worried, as the most unpleasant part was a quick look through one of each of our bags and a need for a motorcycle insurance for Denise, which were just inconveniences at most.

We had arrived in Turkey! A land of mystery and different culture. Mind you, we have lived for three years in Wedding – a part of Berlin – which is home to the largest Turkish community outside of Turkey, so we had some sort of inkling as to what we could expect. Little did we know, we had only experienced a fraction of what Turks and Turkey had to offer.

Hello Turkey!

The road to Istanbul was a new, wide 4-lane highway with pristine tarmac – in other words, a bit boring. The scenery of the sea and coastline along the road, that we had hoped for, kept eluding us. Instead we were presented with construction sites and a repetitive landscape, consisting of featureless grassy hills with only a few sporadic trees to break the monotony. After so much mountain and coastline landscape, we had been spoiled. Hopefully the drive along the Black Sea would make up for this initial impression.

Straight ahead. Take us down the smooth road!

As soon as we had water in sight, our damn navigation took us inland. We didn’t notice this misguidance, until we were so far in, that it wouldn’t make sense to turn back. We had studied the map in advance, and had noticed, that we would have to go inland for a bit to go around a city. We thought, that we had just misjudged the scale of the map. Alas, this was a mean jest from our navigation. We decided then and there, that we wanted full control of the routes we wanted to travel, without any “help” from the modern wonders of technology. In a pinch, it is good to have the ability to know exactly where you are, which GPS is the master of, but for all intents and purposes, we were going old school with our navigation. Begrudgingly, we let our confused, “high-tech” guide lead us the rest of the way to Istanbul.

When we had the city in our sights, we did not know it at first. From atop a hill, a valley of buildings spread out before us, but this was 40 km from where our booked room was. As we descended into the slow moving horde of traffic, stretching as far as our eyes could follow the road, we had no idea of what lay ahead of us.

Is that you Istanbul? Surely not with 40 km still to go.

Allow us to give you a few facts regarding Istanbul, to help emphasise what comes next. The greater metropolitan area of Istanbul is over twice as large as Luxembourg, covering 5343 km² as opposed to Luxembourg’s 2586 km². With a total of over 14.8 mil. inhabitants, it trumps Denmark, Norway and Mongolia combined – by a million. The statistics were not known to us, as we settled in behind the cars in front of us. This was going to be the slowest 40 km of the trip so far. As everybody wanted to get ahead as fast as possible, a lot of erratic lane switching occurred all around us. We thought it might just be the rush hour of this city we had come to before Istanbul, and that it would dissipate, as soon as we reached the other side. Oh boy, were we wrong.

Bit by bit…

…always a little further. Sometimes we even experienced actual space up to the cars in front!

Time to get our hi-vis vests out. Hopefully, wearing them would make us less invisible. Actually, they seemed to help. Cars kept slightly more distance. Wiggling a bit with the front wheel like an inexperienced rider helped as well!

In the end, we spend a good 3.5 hours at a veritable snail’s pace, inching ahead minute by minute until we came to our exit off this highway with its almost living entity of cars and trucks. An image of the animals of the African Savanna, wandering across the steppes, comes to mind, when we think back on it.

The last few km to our hotel was another display of utter incompetence from our so-called “guide”. We were lead through a myriad of narrow alleyways and pedestrian walkways, much to the nuisance of the locals, until we finally reached our destination. It was indeed time to let it retire. It hadn’t helped, either, that we had been accompanied by heavy clouds for the last slow stretch, which had bathed us in lukewarm showers at random intervals.

Well this is tight. I wonder if a bigger motorcycle would have fit. How nice we are so conveniently small.

How good the Honda NX250 is so light that we can lean it to the side and squeeze by.

Wet, hot and tired from the strain of concentrating on not getting side-lined by cars suddenly switching lanes the past several hours, we dragged our luggage to the fifth floor (a very unnecessary amount of steps for us at that time, and far too warm for comfort) to our room. We had been upgraded (haha, get it? UP-graded, because we had to go up!). It was a very nice room, we must say. A tiny suite, of sorts, and it was equipped with an all-important set of air-conditioning units. With cool air blasting from the vents, we mustered the last bit of energy we had in us, got out of the wet riding gear and into dry clothes, and headed out to find food.

We ended up in a shisha bar overlooking the area, after a disappointing realisation that the restaurant next to the hotel had a line going all the way down the street of people waiting for a free spot at a table. Hungry and tired, we promised ourselves, that when we had more energy the next day, we would stand in line to see just why it was such a popular place. The dürüm we were served at the shisha bar was heavenly. Doubly so because of the long day and our rumbling stomachs. We learned that the Ramadan had just begun, which was why there was a long queue of people waiting to be seated at the other restaurant. Nonetheless, it was a good sign of the food being served there, and we were still determined to try it out the next day.

A tired Denise and the view from the shisha bar.

Back at the hotel, we went to bed with lifted moods from a full belly and a pleasant room.

The next day we got up early to heavy clouds still hanging above the city. We had found a free walking tour of Istanbul online, and wanted to make the most of the day, so we set off to the meeting point between Hagia Sofia and the Blue Mosque, which was a good hour’s walk from the hotel. When we came to the meeting point, there was no guide to be seen, nor a group looking like they were waiting for a free tour. We wandered about the area, took in the scenery of armed police forces clearing a stretch of road next to the park, we were walking through, and kept an eye out for our guide. Spotting the tourist information next to the park, we went in and acquired a road map of Turkey. Finally, we would be in complete charge of the routes we would be driving along. Out of the tourist information office, we ended up finding the guide with a small group we had overlooked, and after we had introduced ourselves, the tour set off.

Now, that would be a fun truck to drive around the world!

Our guide told us, that the heavy police force was there to protect Erdogan, who was en-route to partake in the Friday noon mass in the Blue Mosque. There were even snipers atop the minarets of Hagia Sofia, overlooking the area opposite from the mosque.

A sniper on the lookout for any threats.

Denise in a puddle getting creative with the reflections from the water.

The result of her creativity: the Blue Mosque.

One of the many dogs of Istanbul, lying in front of the entrance to the royal palace.

The restored wooden houses of the palace officials, which had burned down during the 20th century.

One of the oldest universities of Istanbul, designed by Mimar Sinan, still teaching the crafts taught back then.

We had a tea and pee break. Tea is usually served in these traditional glasses in Turkey.

One of the artists working on her ceramics.

Denise admiring the intricate patterns of the ceramics and clay. Too bad we don’t have space in our luggage to take anything so delicate with us.

A chestnut-roasting man roasting his nutty chestnuts.

Tiny, colourful houses behind the Sultan Ahmet Mosque (the Blue Mosque).

A closer look.

Continuing down the road behind the Blue Mosque with the tiny, colourful houses, some more rustic houses appeared.

The tour ended behind the Blue Mosque, and we went for lunch with the guide, who gave us a long list of sights and cities to see along the coast of the Black Sea. A great help from a great guy. After lunch, we made our way into the Blue Mosque, but not before being accosted by a sharply dressed young man, with perfect English, who tried his best to lure us to his carpet shop.

“You have a home? I have beautiful carpets. No? You have family back home? Come see my beautiful carpets, they are the perfect gift from Turkey. We will pay for the shipping. No problem.” and so on until we succeeded in convincing him that a carpet was not what we needed right there and then.

Inside the mosque, shoes were not allowed, as the entire floor was draped in a rich, red carpet. An amazing feeling, walking on such a soft material inside such a large space.

Inside the Blue Mosque.

The main dome.

Centre view.

A view of Hagia Sofia.

The beautiful German Fountain – a popular place for Muslims to do their ritualistic cleansing before the mass, and for tourists as well, as it contains drinking water.

As we had already spent the first part of the day in the area, we wanted to get around to the outlying sights, so we skipped Hagia Sofia, saving it for another time. We took the tram to the spice market to the north, but not before being saluted by another well-dressed man, trying to verbally push his carpets onto us. Again, after a longer discussion about the merits of travelling light on motorcycles – which did not include carpets of any sort – he gave up, and we could continue our way to the spice market.

Esben doing his thing in the spice market.

The spice market was full of all sorts of things, that were not spices. It did have spices, though, but you could sense the flow of tourists had cultivated a wider array of “treasures” on display.

The expected assortment of tea and spices.

Of course we had to get something for our cooking. Smoked chilli is a very good all-rounder.

And then there were the curious shops full of other peculiarities. This one sells sea sponges.

Just look at all that gold. We wonder how much is just gold plated, or even gold, though.

After the spice market, the Galata Bridge and Tower beckoned for us to come have a look at what they had to offer.

The Galata Bridge with Galata Tower peaking up in the background. Fishermen fishing some fish, while the birds fly high and the tourists marvel.

We took a closer look and they actually caught real life fish.

We enjoyed the unfamiliar view of such a different skyline with all the mosques and the old city in the background.

The crossing the Bosphorus. Lets get up to that Tower on top of the Hill.

To get to the Galata Tower we chose to explore the small streets and alleyways, where we found ourselves in a mishmash of small hardware shops, selling everything from faucets through car parts to timber. All the goods were on a jumble of display, hanging from hooks, leaning against walls and just lying on the ground.

The beginning of the crisscrossing streets of small shops.

A young man playing with a kitten, caught in a joyful moment.

The way up to the tower was chuck full of street art.

A local cafe with its patron.

Some vibrant street art with a cat posing for Esben.

And another with some important wisdom.

Last, but not least the tower itself.

Looming above the surrounding buildings.

Another good vantage point to take in the tower from.

What a quirky, little, motorised tricycle.

On the way back to the hotel, we even found a cat hotel!

It is nice to see, they are being cared for.

That evening we went to the restaurant next to the hotel, to find out why it was so popular. With a name like “Kebab Salon”, we had an idea of what they would serve, and it was damn good. The best kebab we had in Istanbul.

As our time in Istanbul was limited, we already had to say ‘good bye’ the next day. We were very excited about seeing the rest of the country, not knowing which drama was lying ahead of us.

Until next time, don’t let long queues discourage you from trying some good food.