Tag Archives: free dinner

Day 315 – Troy untouched

Peeking into the archaeological site you see a...horse

Peeking into the archaeological site you see a…horse

Well … we thought to mix it up a bit and visit the local museum instead of another set of ruins. This time especially, since there is really not much left to see of the ancient cities of Troy (yes, there were actually 7 cities on top of each other built over the ages). The museum got early praise in the guide book and was due to open in mid 2015. But it turns out this is one more thing Turks have in common with Germans: It was still not done yet.

Not too sad, we hit the road and got on our way to the final city to be explored on our trip: Istanbul. Now the logical thing would be to take the ferry from Çanakkale to Gallipoli, have a look around and then go to Istanbul. That way, going home would be a single long line on motorways. But alas, we can not. Because Gallipoli is in Europe, and we had had this idea of riding from Asia to Europe over the Bosporus pretty much since the start of our trip. We are probably adding another 300km to our trip that way, but who is counting?

So close! But you still have to take a ferry across, so we're taking the long way around

So close! But you still have to take a ferry across, so we’re taking the long way around

So we flew along the coast, ready to do a round trip along the entire coastline of the Sea of Marmara. Without taking a ferry, Istanbul was a little bit outside what we would comfortably ride in a day. Plus, we wanted to pay a short visit to Touratech Türkiye. So, in preparation, we booked a (surprisingly cheap) hotel room in the Sultanahmet area of Istanbul and checked for good camp spots along the way.

The spot we found turned out to be one of these unbelievable jackpots we hit from time to time. It was almost brand new, dead cheap and the camp warden was the kindest fellow we had met in a long time. He spoke not a word of English or German, but helped us carry our gear and invited us for çay. Ten minutes after I said I would have to go off now to cook food, he served us with an amazing platter of fresh bread, soup, yogurt and grilled chicken breast, free of charge. Such a sweet guy.

There was another reason this day would stay in our minds for a long time. When I checked my emails, I found an invitation there for a job interview! The work in Kaş had paid off already. Minor detail about this, though: The invitation is for the 23rd … ten days from today, in Frankfurt. But then, this is only 3000km away now, is it not?