Beach Life, Gallipoli and İzmir

Originally we had planned to stay one or two nights in Lichnos, but the location was incredible and it was so nice to just chill that we ended up staying four. We passed our days reading on the beach, swimming in the sea, and cooking delicious meals on the camp stove.




Just on the beach near to our tent, there was an old piece of driftwood, which we treated as our breakfast, lunch and dinner table. Sitting there drinking tea in the mornings, beer in the evenings and chatting about all sorts was a brilliant way to spend a few days. The beach was luckily very quiet, and before 11 a.m. and after about 17:30, we were pretty much guaranteed it to ourselves. I'm sure there is only so much people want to see of us lounging around, but here are some photos...






















Our time there was pretty much stress free, bar a mosquito bite I had from the first night growing to epic proportions. The lady on reception advised me to go to the doctors in Parga, but luckily it started to go down after a couple of days. 

Eventually, we had to tear ourselves away from our happy beach bum existence, and continue making our way to Turkey. After consulting the map, we set Kavala as a realistic target for the day. Although we mainly went on the motorway, the scenery was pretty epic. The road curved through seemingly endless vistas of mountains, and every now and then we would see road signs warning that we were driving through a bear habitat (although sadly, the bears were feeling shy and we didn't see any).

On the whole, the weather for the drive was beautiful. However, when we stopped for fuel about an hour away from Kavala, we noticed huge, ominous clouds brewing over the mountains. Crossing our fingers that we would avoid it, we continued along the road. Unfortunately, we were not so lucky, and ended up passing right through it. It was intense. Visibility suddenly went down to almost nothing, and instead of the rain we expected, we were pelted with hail. The road was quiet, but we and most of the other cars all pulled onto the hard shoulder as it was just too dangerous to attempt to drive through. Even through our bike gear, the marble sized hailstones hurt a lot. We huddled together giggling and shouting until it stopped.

Things looked up slightly when we got to Kavala. I had imagined it as an ugly concrete town, probably stuffed full of drunk Brits, so we chose to stay well out of the centre. Although we weren't wrong on the ugly concrete aspect, the atmosphere in the town centre when we went in for food in the evening was a pleasant surprise. Maybe it's because we were out of season, but there was a notable absence of drunken tourists, and we enjoyed a good value and tasty meal.

The next morning, Oli went down to the bar area of the hotel to get us some coffee, and got chatting to the man on reception about the economic crisis. Although we hadn't seen many signs of it on the surface in Greece, it seems to remain very much an issue. Salaries have dropped massively, and the price of goods has risen. The person Oli was talking to had seen their pay drop from 1400 euro a month to just 400 in a short space of time. Although the situation in the UK isn't the best, it seems Greece is suffering much worse.

The drive to the border took a couple of hours, and there is definitely no missing the fact that you are in Turkey after leaving the Greek side of the bridge, as the flag was everywhere. We've had pretty easy border crossings so far, so this one was the longest and most complex. After first showing our passports, I had to go to a seperate window to buy my visa, then go back to the original window and get it stamped. From here, we had to go to another window with the vehicle registration document, then to another building to buy insurance. The border guard who had sent us to buy insurance told us he wanted to look in our luggage when we came back, but luckily by the time we returned he had gone to lunch, and his colleague was not such a jobsworth. After one more document check at another window, we were off and on our way.

Due to national service issues that most of you will know all about, it has been three years since Oli was back in the motherland, and to say he was excited is an understatement. We were also pleasantly surprised that the driving was not as bad as expected. In fact, compared to Albania, it was very good (Albania has become the benchmark against which we judge bad driving and bad roads). As we drove through Northern Turkey, although it was really warm, we managed to get very briefly rained on. We have now been rained on by every country bar Albania....

As we bombed along a wet section of road, we went past a speed camera hidden in a police car. It didn't flash us, but a few yards down the road we were waved down by a policeman. I was unfairly cross with Oli at first, as I assumed he had been speeding, but luckily it was just a routine check and they sent us back on our way, bringing our total police encounters to three so far.

Our stop for the night was to be Eceabat, on the Gallipoli peninsula. Oli remembered a cheap hotel from when he did the trip with Duncan almost four years before, but when we arrived it had been very recently renovated, and although it was still cheap, was now really nice. We had a good giggle at the name, as it was called The Boss II Hotel.

After a brief pit stop, we went back out on the bike to see some of the Gallipoli sites. The peninsula is now a national park, mainly covered in forest with some golden wheat fields. It is exceptionally beautiful, and it is sad to think how many people from different nations lost their lives there, almost 100 years ago.

We went to the main Turkish memorial area, which is on a cliff top overlooking the sea. A huge monument dominates the main square, and a little way along in rows amongst the pine trees are lots of glass gravestones, each inscribed with several names. In the evening sun it was both beautiful and thought provoking.










As it was getting late, we decided to head back towards the hotel, aiming to see one of the Allied forces sites as well. Through the trees we glimpsed a small cemetery (Skew Bridge), so decided to stop. We were the only ones there, and spent some time walking around and reading the epitaphs on the memorials. A lot of the soldiers were never identified, or their remains never found, and it saddened us to read “believed to be buried here” before so many of the names, some who had died as young as 15.

Later that evening we went out for kebab (Oli) and pide (me) on the sea front. Oli told me off for talking to the street cats... apparently I am weird! We went back to our hotel and had a surprisingly good sleep, seeing as we were sharing the place with two school trips.






After a good, traditional Turkish breakfast in the morning we set off for Izmir. The weather got steadily hotter as we rode south. Luckily as with the day before, the driving was on the whole pretty good. The hairiest moment came in a mountain pass, where we ended up in a trail of cars following a heavily loaded lorry. The lorry ignored all opportunities to pull over and let people go, and as soon as there was a vaguely straight bit of road about five cars all went for it at the same time, also trying to overtake  each other. They didn't seem too bothered by the oncoming traffic, so we hung back and watched with open mouths, choosing to stick behind the lorry and deal with the smell of its burning brakes.

Aside from this, we made it to Izmir pretty much incident free. Oli's parents had spent the day at the mountain house picking delicious cherries. Apparently there are too many, so we are enjoying ourselves stuffing our faces. Later in the evening, Oli, Can and I wandered into Bornova to see where they grew up. Almost immediately we stumbled across a protest in the main square. Unlike Ankara, it was all pretty peaceful and there were no police around. They were walking the same way we were going, so we walked amongst them for a bit before diverting and going for an ice cream. Three ice creams here cost pretty much what just one would have back home, which we were pretty pleased about. The petrol here may be the most expensive in the world, but at least you don't get ripped off on dairy products.

My lovely Mum and Dad arrive on Wednesday, and we are very much looking forward to it!

P.S. Here is a friend Oli made at the campsite. His name is Green Bernard.

Was that a Bear?! - Adventures on the Adriatic Coast

We set off from Croatia early(ish) on Saturday, both really looking forward to Montenegro as we had heard really good things about it. The border crossing was pretty painless, but after driving for about twenty minutes we found ourselves stuck in heavy traffic along the coast, with huge storm clouds brewing over the mountains. Added to this, the road surface was fairly awful in places.

We crawled along the coast road, observing that the driving standards had taken a definite dive since crossing the border! We had thought it was bad in Bosnia, but this was something else. People either drove like they had sat on a wasp, or dangerously slow and erratic. Once we got out of the traffic, the roads were generally pretty fast, and snaked around the edge of the mountains with huge drops to the edge. At one point, we came around a blind bend to see somebody merrily doing a u-turn...

As we approached Kotor Bay, the aforementioned storm clouds broke spectacularly, pelting us with rain, which did not exactly show the area at its best! Added to this, we were stuck behind an old Sprinter van, which spewed diesel fumes at us every time it changed gear. The setting of Kotor was stunning, but for us, we felt you had to look through too much rubbish to appreciate it. Apparently Montenegro was a big tourist destination in the 1980s, but the wars in the region in the 90s caused tourism to plunge. It is on the up, but recovery seems slow and there are a lot of buildings and old hotels which look like they have totally gone to seed. To be fair though, we were only there for a day, in bad weather, and have probably not given it enough of a chance. There were some lovely bits of Kotor and other parts of the coastline, and with a little more time to explore and better weather, it might have been a different story. We had gone to Montenegro with really high expectations, and it left us both a little disappointed.

Things looked up in the evening, as we arrived at our apartment (£17 per night!), and were greeted by our friendly host. He didn't speak much English but had good German, so he and Oli were able to have quite a nice chat. Before we had even got our things to our room, he beckoned us into the kitchen, and gave us shots of home-made schnapps. I'm not much good at strong alcohol, so had half of mine and sneakily gave the rest to Oli. The schnapps bottle came out again at breakfast (this time we declined), which might have explained a lot of the driving we had seen!

We explained to our hosts we were off to Albania, and were a little alarmed when they warned us about the standard of driving there (we thought Montenegro was bad enough!). They waved us off with their three year old grand daughter, who looked absolutely terrified of us once we put our helmets on, and off we went to Albania. Although we had not appreciated Montenegro scenery wise, everyone we met there was helpful, welcoming and friendly, so we definitely don't want to judge it too harshly after so little time there.

We arrived at the border to a huge queue. It was semi-organised chaos. Every now and then, a car would drive up the wrong side of the road and start beeping to be let into the queue ahead. Oli and I just took the relaxed approach, and giggled at the scenes unfolding in front of us. As we neared the front of the queue, one of the guards waved us over to another window. “Brilliant”, we thought, but there was nobody there, and the guy serving the opposite side let through about three cars before acknowledging our presence. Eventually, we got through, and were on our way. In Albania, things just take as long as they take, so you might as well just accept it.

The countryside after the border was beautiful and incredibly rural. At first, the driving didn't seem any worse than Montenegro, but as we approached Tirana the roads got busier and more difficult. The road surfaces are terrible in Albania, and it is not at all unusual to have to avoid huge potholes on the main roads. Occasionally, we would ride good stretches of motorway, but these often had no road markings, and would frequently end with no warning, becoming gravel roads or more heavily potholed stretches. We saw too many amusing / dangerous things on the roads to list them all , but here are some of our highlights:

• Cars stopped in the fast lane dropping people off.
• People cycling on the motorway.
• People driving up the hard shoulder, the wrong way.
• Somebody having filled in the ditch separating the two directions, so he could drive straight across from one side to his house.
• Two cars driving along the two lane highway side by side at abouut 25 mph, having a chat and blocking the entire road.

Now, finding cash machines in Albania is not easy, and they don't really seem to exist outside of the major towns. With this in mind, we pulled off into a large town near Durres, and luckily found an ATM. As we drove back out of the town to the main road, I was about to point out somebody walking a huge dog, but as we got closer we realised it was in fact a bear. Not something you see every day.

The scenery between Durres and Vlore isn't the best, and the sea between Durres and Fier is too polluted for swimming. When we got towards Vlore however, the road starts to follow some beautiful coastline. This part of the country is known as the Albanian Riviera, and it really is spectacular as well as being largely undeveloped. We were aiming for the large village of Dhermi, which was just over the mountain. The tiny road carved through rocky forest, in places giving way to short gravel stretches. It also looked like there were frequently small landslides and rockfalls in the area, which made the roads even more challenging, but it was all worth it when we reached the top. At the peak, we were higher than the distant clouds, and had the most amazing view over the sea.

The descent was hair raising but incredible; hairpin bends, sharp drops, rocks in the road, and beautiful views. We had been hoping to camp for the evening, but hadn't seen any signs nearby. We ended up getting a cabin about 20m from the beach for about 25 euro, which was not too bad. The guy proudly showed us the tv, fridge, aircon, before announcing that the power in the village cuts off at 7 p.m. We also had to keep reminding ourselves that you cannot drink the tap water in Albania (apparently it is jokingly known locally as Hoxha's Revenge).

We ate that night at the restaurant, the guy who had shown us to our cabin offered to translate the menu, and then just read it all to us in Albanian. We sat on the terrace overlooking the sunset, drinking beer and putting the world to rights. Later in the evening, they told us the generator wasn't working, so gave us candles. We went to sleep relaxed and happy.

It would have been easy to stay another night, but Greece was calling and we were keen to get going. We decided to get to the border via the back roads, so weren't entirely sure how long it would take us, or even if the border would be open.The drive was as spectacular as the previous day, and the roads mercifully quieter, which made things a lot easier (less of a problem veering onto the other side of the road to avoid mega potholes!). We saw a lot of bunkers left over from the 700,000 that were built during Hoxha's rule, several of which had been blown up. I guess they are unpleasant reminders of a difficult time.

After Sarande, the road became even smaller. Things were going well, until it ran out entirely at a river (there was no clue this might happen on the map), and some locals were operating a chain ferry. This was pretty much just an old wooden platform mounted on oil drums, but it got us and another car over just fine, and we continued down mainly gravelly roads to the border.

The crossing leaving Albania was a lot quicker than entering, as we were the only people there. As we handed over the V5 document, the Greek border guard asked us if we had ridden from the UK. When we said yes, he smiled, shook his head, and said “Bravo”.

The roads in Greece are almost instantly better, and we covered what would what have taken us ages in Albania in almost no time at all. We were sad to leave Albania, but also excited to get to Greece. I would definitely recommend a visit to Albania, and whilst I wouldn't say it is unspoiled, I would certainly say it is un-touristy, and a beautifully surprising and adventurous place to go. We both hope to return at some point in the future.

The drive from Igoumenitsa was lovely, and we drove through and above a vast wetland, where storks nested on telegraph poles. We are now camping in Greece near Parga. Our tent is only a few metres from the beach, and we are camped in an olive grove. I am currently writing this on the beach, and it is so lovely here that we are going to stay for a few days. Oli is pretty concerned about the situation in Turkey at the moment, and is keen to get home, so we have changed our route to go through Northern Greece instead of heading South. Hopefully things start to be resolved soon, but for now, we are concentrating on enjoying our remaining time in Greece.

Lost in Sarajevo

On the morning of leaving Ljubljana towards Croatia we discovered that the big mean ginger cat we kept seeing around the apartment blocks on the way to town everyday, had a nice clawing session on the seat and left quite a bit of fur all over the tank panniers. Little ginger ******!!

The ride out of Ljubljana was as relaxed as the rest of the city was and the road led us through more beautiful countryside. We entered Croatia from Metlika and headed towards Karlovac (destination Plitvice Lakes), which has the big Karlovačka brewery. When we had stopped for a break Charli said she had spotted what looked like bullet holes on buildings. We did a bit of research at the next opportunity, and it turns out the city was one of the hot spots during the 1991-1995 war between the Croats and Serbs. This was the first real reminder that we were entering a geographical area that was very recently a war zone.

The day kept getting warmer and sunnier and the roads more and more fun with long sweeping bends and beautiful countryside. Charli admitted that once she relaxed she really enjoyed the ride too :)  The gradual change from Slovenia to Croatia was interesting where a lot more small holdings and people farming manually could be seen. We arrived in Rastovaca early afternoon greeted by a band of puppies which tried to take off with one of my sweaty leather gloves. Rastovaca is a beautiful village along a single track road where everyone runs a guest-house on the side for very very reasonable prices (15-20mins walk from Plitvice Lakes). Once we emptied the panniers we went to the shop (10mins drive away) stocked up on lunch and dinner ingredients, prepared a quick lunch (our room had a kitchenette, which was a blessing) and got on with some maintenance. The puppies quickly reappeared and all ran off once I dropped a spanner on the floor, bar one, who decided he was going to help out with the rear brake pad change...

Then he ran off with my rag. Animals seem to be bullying us as of late. That day was the first day on our trip where:

It did not rain.
The sun was out all day.
We busted the shorts out.

In the evening we cooked a nice meal and washed it down with some Croatian vino.









The following day we woke up to cloudy skies and drizzle (the forecast seems to be getting it right) again, we were glad we didn't camp, as we intended to do a bit of a hike around the National Park and the drizzle turned to full on rain. Whilst our stuff stayed dry in our room we sheltered under a hut overlooking the beautiful lakes. I can't remember whether we gave up first or the rain, but we set off walking again. The Plitvice lakes and waterfalls are amazing, hope the pictures below bring you some of the atmosphere:



















All day we walked rather than taking the connecting buses and tired ourselves out and earned ourselves another big meal. We crashed out pretty early and were up at 7.30am the next day and left around 9.15 after breakfast. We crossed the border near Bihac (Bosnia and Herzegovina). This time there was a more sudden change in scenery (definitely less affluent than Croatia) and more obvious bullet ridden and shell damaged buildings. The driving and the roads also got significantly worse. I guess rebuilding a country isn't easy once it gets torn up. On this day we were heading to Sarajevo. We both wanted to go and see the city that was under siege for 3 years and endured a lot of fighting. This partially felt like something we needed to do as it happened quite recently and was on our doorstep which we consider important to us.

Bosnia is one of the most beautiful places we have ever seen, although the contrast of lush mountains and still bullet scarred buildings was very thought provoking (we've not got many pictures of this sort of thing, as seemed pretty insensitive to go up and start snapping). There were still a lot of bombed out shells of buildings visible all along the road, and there is definitely no disappearing off into the bushes for a pee, as there are still 200,000 land mines to be found.





The roads to Sarajevo were slow and busy with lorries, cars, tractors and bad drivers. We got in to Sarajevo around 5pm rush hour and it was a bit crazy, but I knew what to expect and it was fine in the end (it was a bit like being back in Turkey.. or the south of France.. or Southern Italy.. that type of fishbowl style road use). After a couple of laps of the old town and asking about 5 people we eventually found our guesthouse. It was located pretty centrally near Bascarsija (means Main Bazaar). Also the Sat-nav only had about 10 streets in its memory, which was of no help.





We went out for food in the evening, and took in the atmosphere of the place at night. (Side Note: Second day of the trip with no rain and no getting soaked) The next day we had a lazy start, went and got some breakfast (borek) and wandered the warren of Bascarsija. After a while we were ready for the emotional stop we had preplanned at the Galerija 11/07/95 (http://galerija110795.ba/), which is a photo and video display of the atrocities that happened in Srebrenica and it's localities between 1993-1995. We spent around 2-2.5 hours in Galerija 11/07/95 watching videos (stories of survivors, can also be found http://cinemaforpeace.ba/en/testimonies) and looking at some very moving photos. Today people are still burying their loved ones...

The fact that this happened this near in time and this close to home is very worrying. To me it also feels like a lot has been swept under the carpet and a lot of politicians and people in UN at the time have a lot to answer for (personal opinion).



After this we went to Franz and Sophies tea shop on Petrakijina 6 and had wonderful pots of tea served enthusiastically by the owner (who seemed as enthusiastic about life as he was about his teas, very nice and very warm fellow... a bit like his teas). I had an amazing Assam and Charli had the home fruit brew, which was really amazing. We munched on some nice cookies and some fresh cherries all on the house.  Following a break back at the guesthouse, we wandered back in to town as the sun decided come out (ow did I say it rained again today and we got wet yet again.. no joke..) and we thought we should snap a few shots while things looked crisp.









This is the bridge where emperor Franz Ferdinand got assassinated excusing the triggering off of the 1st World War.



Sarajevo is just beautiful and we both fell a little in love with it, and would love return one day. I think I like it more than Ljubljana.. it definitely has a real vibe. Bascarsija seems like it's never lost its place in the city and become a touristy area, I mean it is touristy but is very much used by the locals as a main eating/drinking/meeting/greeting area.. it is ace. Also like Ljubljana it is a zero hassle place, nobody tried to sell us anything or make us come in to their restaurant etc etc (none of the usual rubbish you get). However this region is politically still very confused/divided and we both hope there is more peace for these people in the future.

As the weather was looking pants again (stormy on the Med coast) we decided to head to another B&B just outside Dubrovnik (much cheaper) via Mostar. Not having the weather to camp is really annoying me but it is making the trip what it is... so I shalst stop whinging about it... just for this post.

Today we set of around 9.15am, realised the sidestand was loose and sorted that out once we were out of central Sarajevo. In some small town I filtered passed the traffic and got going as usual once the light turned green, only to be pulled over by a very very Bosnian police officer... after 10 minutes of pleading and saying “In England.. this is filter! Motorbike can filter! It's OK... I didn't know I'm sorry” . Just as he started writing the ticket he must have heard me say “I'm sorry”  for the 30th time so he just gave me my passport back and told me to go. PHEW! (Would have been a 50Euro fine to pay in at a bank or a post office). Also the policeman laughed at my name (Oliver Kaan), which may have helped us get off! We arrived in Mostar just before lunch time, paid the equivalent of £2 to a complete stranger for parking our bike on a public street (as you do) and headed around the twisty old streets and to the Stari Most.





Mostar is very pretty but it is very very touristy and people try and sell you things. After the relaxed non pushy attitude of Sarajevo it was very surprising. We had lunch overlooking the river and with the bridge in view. (As we were doing all this it was hammering it down with rain). Once re-fuelled we set off towards Dubrovnik, and after half an hour or so the rain gave up and we reached the Adriatic coast in glorious sunshine and dry roads.





Around 30km from our destinations we both needed a break and stopped on one of the many scenic spots on the road. Around 50 yards down the road there were a couple of bikers looking in trouble. I went over to ask what was wrong and the bike kept cutting out once it was in gear. Immediate thoughts were side stand switch, as the guy kept saying the magnet was lost (I think it was a hall-effect sensor). I gave them a hand shorting the switch but the bike still wouldn't start, we had no multimeter, no wiring diagrams so it was a bit of a hard one. Ow did I say the bike broken down was a KTM.. the wiring on those things is dismal and very exposed. After a while, we cut out a small magnet out of Charli's bag (Primark, £5 so no worries) and it was still not having it, so the problem may have been something else. After a while longer we needed to head off, the guy tried to give us 20Euros but we refused it. I felt quite bad leaving them there but there wasn't much I could do without a diagram and a meter and I don't know the bike very well. As this was happening the rains were slowly catching up with us.




We arrived at our B&B and after a quick wash went down to get an evening meal. We had warned them about Charli being a veggie so the owner had prepared us an amazing olive-oily vegetable feast, straight out of the garden, served with a massive jug of house wine and finished off with fresh garden strawberries. Towards the end of the meal another couple walked in and asked for a soft drink, the guy replied with “Ooo.. sorry I only have wine” … amazing... (then they managed to get hold of some juice). The rooms are pretty basic but we would recommend this place for the food! (B&B Country House , Zvekovica 60, 20210 Cavtat ). Tomorrow we are aiming for Albania or maybe stay over in Montenegro or stay here and see Dubrovnik.. who knows really.. :D