|
Time to head home, the hot springs of Pamukkale were the turnaround as it was considered unsafe to continue further east into Asian Turkey by road, as there was an Islamic fundamentalist revolution going on and we really did not wish to be kidnapped by the PKK, as several other European travelers had. We dropped south and the headed west toward the Aegean coast. Paused to take a look at a thermal-steam power plant powered by geysers. The outflow, a boiling stream, was littered with old bathtubs, used by local folks to do laundry. First stop was the Biblical city of Ephesus (Efes). All the pensions and modern-day dwellings are 4 miles down the road at Selcuk so we found a nice one, with a bunch of Aussies hanging out in it and settled in. Just happened that the next day was the once-every-four-year Turkish census. By law, all Turks had to be in their homes from 7am to 7pm. Only exceptions: cops, fire men and dairy workers. No taxies or buses; a few shops were open where the owners lived in them. Very quiet day. Good day to visit the city of Ephesus. We rode out on Strider and had the place to ourselves and about 20 other people who had either their own vehicles or had walked the four miles. It is a magnificently restored Roman city, the four story restored library is the most commonly published picture from there. It was a real special way to see the place, on that day. I viewed the HUGE parking lot where I was told that in high summer, as many as 500 tour buses from the cruise ships would be there.
Next stop was Bergama, location of perhaps the oldest Christian church (supposedly St. John was there) as well as great Roman ruins on an Acropolis. Great market there too, with absolutely no pushy carpet sellers. At one stall, I picked up a half-dozen of those cables the fellow had used to revive Strider's front brake. From there, we quickly got to Caakkale, on the Dardanelles straits. The next morning, we took a ferry across and were back in Europe and the Peninsula of Galipoli, scene of one of the biggest tactical blunders made by a young Winston Churchill in WW1. One of the reason we ran into so many Australians and New Zealanders in Turkey, is that a large percentage of second and third generation citizens of those countries have an ancestral connection with that place. The site of the six month siege is now a National Park, with many monuments scattered about. While it was a disaster to the Allied ANZAC forces, commemorated in story, poem and song; it was Turkey's greatest moment. The theme of the place is how Turkey held off and defeated the combined forces of the British Empire and it's allies. After a sober morning at these old battlefields, we rode across the plains, north to the Greek border. As soon as we left Turkey, the weather turned colder, as we rode through our first large Greek town; my girlfriend called out, "I didn't know it snowed in Greece!". sure enough, we had gone from warm Turkish plain to spitting snow in the Greek hills in about six hours. We waited in the town of Kavala, at the top of the Aegean, for the once a week ferry to Lesvos, one of the Aegean islands. The three days gave us time to relax, see more ruins (entirely to ourselves) and eat really good food. After a storm tossed night, where we cared for a VERY seasick Greek woman, we arrived in Mitilini, the port city of Lesvos. My Brown side stand had snapped on the ferry ride, but the /5 had also been lashed to a support pillar, so Strider was basically intact. We spent a very pleasant week there; the island was sort of Greece in microcosm: monasteries(almost deserted), ouzo factories, olive orchards, ruins (Eressos, where Sappho was supposed to have lived), tiny little mountain villages and several port towns. I got the side stand massively, crudely and strongly welded at a local shop as we moved about. Again, we felt like the only travelers on the entire island. After a relaxing week (about 100 miles was the longest day), we caught the daily ferry to Athens. Another storm tossed night, we arrived just in time for the Athenian rush hour. Battled our way to the Acropolis, spent a couple of cold hours on top (we were not the only people there) and headed out of town. A quick dash across the Pelopennesian peninsula, stopping only to make ferry reservations and to view the Corrinthian Canal; we arrived in Patra, to catch another night ferry to Brindisi, Italy. Another storm tossed night (I am getting very tired of ferries) and we arrived, in the rain, in Italy. After several hours of riding around in the rain trying to find the large, but closed youth hostel, we resorted to an expensive down town hotel. Left the next morning in the rain for Naples. The travel gods smiled on us as the rain let up as we rode into town and were introduced to Neapolitan driving traditions. Utter chaos. One way street and a bunch of you want to go the other way? No problem. Two way street and a lot of you want to go one way? No problem. The traffic lights had been shut off six months earlier as the city realized they were just wasting electricity. Almost every vehicle showed signs of being in one or more collisions. We stayed two days in a very good hostel (with beer and wine list in the cafeteria), and visited Pompeii for a day. Then I decided to ride all the way across town to the museum in that traffic. Lots of dodging, lots of horn use and we escaped unsquashed. Left the city in the rain and slogged for two days, detouring around Rome and seeing a little of the Tuscany region. Arrived in Pisa in a downpour, found a hotel across from the train station, where it turned out, our floor was ruled by a demented old fart who lived there. As this gentleman banged on the walls and our door, my lady friend informed me that if it was raining in the morning, she was taking a cab to the aeropeurto and bailing out of this adventure. To be continued..... Matt Parkhouse |
