We left the beautiful city of Edirne and made our way to Istanbul. It’s amazing how drastically the landscape has changed since leaving Bulgaria and losing some elevation. With its craggy hillsides and shrubby trees, it reminded us a lot of the Texas hill country, though no cacti to be seen.
Kyle and I got a kick out of these traffic cop cut outs. They occasionally even had flashing lights.
While momma horse was tied up, her foal wasn’t. Unfortunately we didn’t get a picture of the foal munching on the flowers in the highway divider 😳.
At one of our many gas station water stops, there was a little puppy named cotton, with his mom carefully watching us as we gave him some scratches.
The hot and hilly day ended with a great stay at a very sweet couple’s air b&b. They had a gorgeous little house surrounded by a huge vegetable garden and fruit trees, as well as some chickens and bee hives. They gave us a tour of the yard and had us try all the fresh produce. His son and his family later joined, and we all enjoyed their great homemade wine and chatted about all the travelers who had stayed with them.
A fresh Turkish breakfast with veggies from the garden.
Our last stay before entering Istanbul was at a hotel located in a small national park. The place had a hidden treasure in the woods next to it! It appeared to be once a little park/entertainment area, apparently about 100 years old. We definitely were feeling some The Shining vibes when Kyle got behind the old bar. “You’ve always been the caretaker…”
Getting into Istanbul was not the most relaxing ride. We rode in on a busy 6-lane highway for about 20 miles, but luckily the huge shoulder made it alright. The real challenge was getting to our place through the narrow and crowded streets of the old city. At one point we had to roll the bikes through a packed bazaar and being asked if we were interested in some denim…or perhaps some knock off gucci flip flops?
But all the sites made that struggle worth it!
We made a trip through the grand bazaar, the oldest still active bazaar in the world. Indoors and taking up several blocks, we enjoyed getting lost in the maze. One shop owner approached us and tried to interest us in taking home a large rug. He did not have a rehearsed reply to our excuse that we came here and are leaving by bike 😂
I had heard Istanbul is called the “City of Cats” and they weren’t exaggerating. Kitties are everywhere, and you’ll often see food, water, and even little cat houses left out for them. I definitely wasn’t complaining about getting to see kittens everyday, but was curious why there were so many cats here. Doing some research, it seems like cats are very popular in most predominantly Muslim countries. They’re seen as ritually clean animals and there are several stories of the prophet Mohammad’s fondness of them. Including him cutting off the sleeve of his robe as to not wake a cat sleeping on it, and even blessing cats with the ability to land on their feet after one saved him from a serpent 🐈
We of course visited the famous Blue Mosque, the sister of the one we visited in Edirne. While beautiful, unfortunately much of it was under renovation.
A gorgeous little park we found on our way to the archeological museum.
Along with the archeological museum, we visited Topkapi palace and walked through the lavish harem.
Kyle and I decided to visit a Hamam, a traditional Turkish bath house. While normally separated by sex, we went to a couples Hamam so we could experience it together. After changing into our towels (and my cloth bikini top) we were told to wait about 45 minutes in the hot room before our massages would begin. It was 107 degrees and so humid I felt like I was going to drown! I actually had to leave several times to cool down. Finally, we were taken into the corners of the hot room and scrubbed down with a kind of loofah. We were told a disturbing amount of dead skin would come off, and they weren’t wrong 😫 we then were put on marble slabs and massaged with very hot soapy water before being rinsed with bowls of cold water. While we did leave smoother than we came, we think that will be our one and only Hamam experience 😂
Some great views and a very friendly cat.
On our friend Ahmad’s recommendation, we took a ferry over to the Asian side of Istanbul to grab some dinner. It seemed much less touristy, and the views on the boat were gorgeous.
We met Ahmad on our first day in the city as we were rolling our bikes through the streets. He stopped us to ask about our trip, as he’s planning to do a bike trip to China in the future. Ahmad’s been a great friend, giving us advice and showing us around the best parts of Istanbul. We owe him a huge thanks!
This morning, we left our bikes and hopped on a plane to Cappadocia. We’ll be staying here two nights and getting up tomorrow at 4:30 am for a hot air balloon ride!
As we waited in the field, we were told the winds were too high and that the flight might be cancelled. Folks were understandably disappointed and the tour operator brokered an offering of ham sandwiches to the group as a consolation. Being 4:30am in the morning, nobody accepted.
A lot of the area was pretty fancy and new, a contrast to the rural scenery we’d seen in North Serbia. Pretty beat and seeing signs for a nearby “aqua park”, we took a day off and enjoyed a reprieve from the high temps. Sasha had warned us earlier not to go to the Aqua Park as it was run by the mafia. Given how hot it was, Kat and I decided to risk a visit anyways. It was $5 each and inside was a totally normal looking water park. We had a great time swimming in their large, mafia-pools and tubing down their many mafia-waterslides.
Kat & Kyle Cycle 