Travel diary Turkey

Entering Turkey is exciting, after all I am about to leave Europe and enter the Asian continent. At customs it is very hot and the fear of the green sheet not valid for Turkey does not make me feel comfortable.

In the end, everything was fine, I completed the various practices, took out insurance for the Vespa for three months, at a cost of € 15 and I left for Istanbul.

The travel diaryTurkey begins …

Istanbul

I’ve been in Turkey for a few kilometers and I smile when I see a life-size silhouette of the police car, complete with a policeman standing in front of the car. At first I thought it was a real police car, only when I get closer I realize that it is just a silhouette, also misled by the flashing lights above the roof, functioning like the real ones.

In Istanbul, thanks to the booking on Booking I find a hostel in the historic center, really close to the mosques, with internal parking for the Vespa and a breathtaking terrace from which you can admire a beautiful panorama of the city. I decide to stop for two nights, to rest, visit the city and better organize my itinerary of the stages in Turkey.

Shortly after the beautiful surprise, a Golden Retriever that runs undisturbed in the structure, brings me back to the thought of Astrid, with joy and melancholy at the same time. Impressive how she rests on my legs at the table, exactly like Astrid or how she sits on the sofa next to me, keeping me company while I study the map of Turkey on the computer.

The next day I decide to dedicate it to a tour of the city, which I already know, having been there a couple of times, but which I gladly revisit. I am curious about all the differences from our Western culture, I visit the square of the mosques, the Grand Bazaar …, all places where I also take some pictures with Lorenzo. Finally, in the afternoon, I decide to relax for a couple of hours in a park facing the sea to soak up some sun, passionately reading the book that Fabio Cofferati kindly gave me, whom I thank again.

The Anatolian plateau

Leaving the heat of Istanbul, I decide to head towards Goreme, whose beauties have been emphasized by several people. The journey is about 600 km, so it is impossible to think of doing it in a day.

From there, up to the border with Iran, I travel about 1700 km, all at altitudes above 1000 meters, often above 1500 meters, also crossing 5 passes above 2000 and up to 2400 meters. In summary for all that long journey I suffer so cold and I also take a little rain, regretting the heat of Istanbul and feeling a slight envy for those who tell me that summer has arrived in Italy.

The Anatolian plateau, an almost completely uninhabited area, except for a few villages and a few towns, where I risk running out of petrol several times as I can’t find distributors even for 80/100 km.

Fascinating, uncontaminated landscapes, refreshment points where time seems to have stopped 40 years ago. Great climbs, where smoking trucks climb almost at walking pace, and then launch into reckless races in the long and interminable descents.

With the Vespa, lightened even if not enough of the superfluous luggage, I tackle the climbs in fourth gear up to 55 km / h, and then climb third and stabilize at 50 km / h. With this pace I attack all the slopes with conviction and with my tiny vehicle I pass the bison of the road that are forced to go much slower uphill. Few times, very few times I am forced to climb second.

Every day I risk the rain, thunderstorms turn threatening without ever hitting me fully, a few quick downpours which, however, do not prevent me from continuing without having to put on a rain suit.

In Erzorum, 500 km from the border with Iran, I arrive in the evening, the city is large and has that “old style” charm that strikes me immediately. It is cold, in fact Erzorum is at 2000 meters above sea level. I’m about to have a really unexpected encounter, 4,000 km from home …

Goreme

Arrival near Goreme around 12.00; I realize that it is a tourist resort by the various buses that arrive and depart continuously. In the 5 km preceding the arrival in the village, on both sides of the road is full of quad rental points, hundreds and hundreds of quads, to explore the area, which takes on, as I get closer, very different appearances from those seen until that moment.

Upon arrival, I feel like I am entering an old country in the far west, many vintage convertible cars that turn, dusty dirt roads or very badly asphalted roads and all around houses set in the land of the mountains.

I ride comfortably on a Vespa, fascinated by that strange and lively environment, where dozens and dozens of restaurants alternate with tourist agencies that offer various types of excursion packages. I am struck by the photos in front of the hot air balloon tour agencies, beautiful photos where dozens and dozens of hot air balloons at sunrise or sunset crowd the skies of Goreme. I would almost want to feel this emotion, but then I decide to give up, perhaps, in hindsight, making a mistake.

With the Vespa I climb the steep climbs that lead to these strange houses dug into the earth of the mountain, I almost touch them. I go up and down, and then again in another part I go up and down again and so on admiring views and views that are different from each other but all beautiful.

It is now 15.00 and I decide to stop and eat something, I randomly choose one of the outdoor restaurants from where I can continue to enjoy the liveliness of the place. As soon as lunch is over, I am at dessert and here too, an encounter as unexpected as it is welcome …

The Vespa is always safe

In choosing where to sleep, I always try to find solutions that allow me to secure my Vespa. This is first to avoid the risk of theft of the Vespa itself and secondly because I try to avoid unloading the rear luggage every night, since I don’t have things that I need in everyday life.

The first photo refers to the night spent en route from Istanbul and Goreme. I have recently passed Ankara and take a road that promises to be 120 km of mountainous stretch, without large towns or opportunities to get petrol and stay overnight. It starts to rain and it starts to get dark, what do I do? Do I go forward or go back? I decide to go on, but nothing, worse and worse and more and more rain. Finally I see the sign of a tiny village, I enter, but it is deserted and not even the shadow of places to sleep. I see a boy who comes out of a small grocery, he walks quickly because it is raining, but as soon as I ask for information to sleep he stops, he doesn’t speak English but he understands. He calls and tells me to follow him, let’s go to a boy’s house, who hosts me in his modest house, makes the wifi of his mobile phone available to me, quickly sets up a bed for me and takes the Vespa into the house, right inside the house , to avoid the risk of theft. I go to bed, tired, no shower, but heartened by the hospitality received. The next morning the boy doesn’t want anything, he insists, “really, I did it willingly”.

I arrive in Sivas, late, too late in the evening, I must be able to arrive before dark. I struggle to find a hotel, there are few. Finally I find it, I park the Vespa in front of the entrance and enter, hotel ok, price ok. I ask for the storage of the Vespa and reassuringly I am told “no problem” and in a few minutes the Vespa is parked in the hall. Fantostic, I dare not ask for anything better.

Same experience in Erzorum, I arrive but the hotel does not have an internal space for my Vespa. Even here, no problem, the adjacent furniture store is available to put it in the window in the evening, when the store closes, and then remove it in the morning, when it opens. The Vespa in the window is beautiful.

Always the same hotel, when I announce the forced return of three days to Italy, makes itself available at no cost, to keep the Vespa in custody, including luggage, in the hall, located next to the check-in desk. I leave for Italy in peace because I know that my Vespa is really in good hands, there in Erzorum.

Travel diary Turkey: Encounters “on the road”

There are many opportunities to meet, every day for some reason I meet and know someone, locals or tourists who, like me, are traveling.

The first photo refers to the guy who kindly hosted me (me and the Vespa) at his house in a difficult moment.

In the second photo an occasional meeting at a distributor, I stop because it is raining, in a small room, bare and squalid, some elderly gentlemen are sitting looking out. I go in and sit down to rest for a moment, I give a wave of greeting and they kindly offer me some tea, which I enjoy pleasantly with them. The password is always the same “Italy”.

Comfortably seated in the restaurant in Goreme, a Slovakian boy, also a biker, approaches me. We had met a couple of days earlier at a distributor. He too there, he recognized me and so we spend some time together at the table, in front of the inevitable Turkish tea.

I’m in Goreme, I’m about to leave and stop for petrol, the next one is indicated at 80 km, too many. The vending staff are curious about my strange vehicle, one by one they arrive, three of them are called Mohamed, the others I don’t remember. The transition to the group photo is immediate.

I arrive at the hotel in Erzorum, at the entrance I notice a Vespa, with a guy nearby, I look at the license plate and it is Italian. Let’s start talking, Valerio di Milano left Italy a month ago with the aim of going to India, then Japan and from there to the Caribbean. He is 24 years old, climber, very easy, he has everything in a 40 liter backpack, no more. On the front luggage rack of his LML 150 cc four-stroke, some plastic bottles that serve as an additional reserve of gasoline. We spend a couple of days together, I dealing with the Italian bureaucracy and he at the embassy to obtain a visa for Iran.

In Erzorum I take the main photo of this post, the carpet seller adjacent to the hotel, the one in front of the door, invites us, me and Valerio, and orders some tea which in a few minutes arrives on a tray and which we drink comfortably seated among the carpets. Immediately after a second lap …, hospitality at the top.

Finally, on the street, I am in Turum, I am stopping to admire the falls and an elderly man crosses the road and smiles at me, we do not know each other but it is natural for us to take a picture together.

I am in the extreme east of Turkey, I have seen many things about this great country, hospitable and contradictory at the same time, with its capital of 15 million inhabitants and the boundless practically uninhabited plateaus.

I have not seen anything in the southern part, that of the sea which seems to offer truly unique landscapes and environments, I think there will be an opportunity, after all Turkey is not that far from Italy.

I approach the Iranian border with fear, I know it is not an easy passage, due to bureaucracy and corruption. I also understand this as I approach the border, when I still see the interminable queues of trucks waiting for miles away, I don’t even want to imagine what time it takes to enter Iran.

A new journey is about to begin, different, more difficult even if, in some respects certainly fascinating. Iran, I’m on my way!

If you want to learn more about some aspects of Turkey, read this article Destination Turkey .