Photo Finish

102 days, 3495 miles

The ancient cities along the Aegean coast, unlike along the Troad peninsula, are still inhabited…still bustling cities, with people and vehicles of all sorts trying to navigate the narrow passages. It’s proven easier just to walk through the towns, along sidewalks and alleyways. The scooters zip past, and the Fiats, but this isn’t Italy anymore, so here comes the Ford Raptor and the Range Rover Defender! You have to be ready to duck into the nooks and crannies when the wide American cars come through.

Pergamon, certainly the finest ancient city to walk through. You have the bustling city at the foot of the hill, and then walk progressively up the hill through the ancient city. Up through the steep amphitheater…

To the temple at the very summit.

I went from ignoring the weather forecast at the start of the month, to obsessing over the forecast, it’s been messing with my head. I have flexibility in my schedule here at the end of the trip, which is actually working against me. I would normally try to push through the occasional rainy forecast, but now I keep trying to schedule days off to coincide with forecasted poor weather. The trouble is they keep shifting which day is supposed to have poor weather.

I’d take a day off only to find the weather actually pretty nice, and to see that now they have poor weather scheduled for 2 days from now. Taking every 3rd day off, with each storm failing to show up, was irritating me to no end! So, when I again woke up to a sunny start to my “rain day,” I flipped out. I packed up my stuff and hit the road, much to the confusion of the property owner as to why I left without a trace after only 1 of the 2 nights I paid for.

Harun sent me a text “It’s important to stick to the plan on the trip. You should also be ready for risk. Unfortunately, rainy days will be frequent now. The best is to choose their tour shortcut…” Wise words, though I have no idea what they mean: am I supposed to take the shortcut, or stick to the plan, or take the rain day? And what’s this about risk? And what shortcut? I want a shortcut.

There’s only one way to avoid climbing every hill and that’s to trace every nook of the coastline, which I did, and it was lovely, although still rather hilly. I let the weather work itself out, without my input.

I pulled out the rain gear only occasionally, mainly to break the wind, and while watching the fisherman sort through the day’s catch. I felt better, back in the swing, 4 days of cycling in a row as I moved around the Foca peninsula.

This certainly wasn’t the shortcut, for 4 days Izmir was advertised as 60 miles away on the road signs.

On the south side of the peninsula, the terrain eased, and I pedaled along the mudflats. I debated whether the pink dots were flamingos, which I was rather certain were confined to South America. I could only deny it for so long, for once up close, definitely flamingos.

At the outskirts of Izmir, it’s an actual bicycle path! I haven’t seen one of those since, well, Hungary I think. The bicycle path, the only bicycle path, takes you right around the bay from one end of the city to the other.

If you stay on the path, it’s easy peddling. I made the mistake of trying to take a small side trip off the path to see the old Roman marketplace.

But first, I had to get through the new Ottoman marketplace. It was an utter disaster trying to push my wide bicycle through the crowded bazaar. And I was soon hopelessly lost, amidst a maze of alleys, all curving, none of the them heading to an exit! No I don’t need shoes, at least not right now, no I don’t need a pet turtle, no I don’t need a 45-lb bag of spice, why would I be in need of a lamp?

45 minutes later I stumbled out the other side, only to find the gate to the Roman ruins locked! I should have known, it’s a Monday!

Izmir is a modest town of some 4 million people, my biggest city since Rome! And at night, it looks like quite the modern metropolis.

Once past Izmir, I decided that Harun was on to something, as I had the chance for a highway shortcut; I’ve found that I can really zip along on Turkish highways, the pavement is so smooth, and I keep having a bit of tailwind on the highway.

The only risk is the occasional construction zone I encounter; to keep the pavement this smooth they must have to rebuild the highway twice yearly! The highway crossed what was once the shallow harbor of mighty Ephesus.

Architectural wonder of the ancient world…the grand library, the mosaic floors of the residences, the boulevards paved in marble.

In the map room in Vienna I learned about the ancient Roman road map, which Stanford University has turned into an online tool. You can pick a staring point, a destination, and a mode of travel, and see how long and how expensive the trip would be for a Roman citizen. Rome to Ephesus is a quick 2 week journey by Sea.

Traveling overland instead, skirting the barbarian frontier, would be an odd choice, unless you’re Emperor Hadrian. In a Roman carriage, Stanford puts the overland journey at 85 days, 7 hours, 12 minutes, to be precise.

And my overland time by bicycle: 88 days, 23 hours, and 46 minutes. Agh, if I hadn’t messed around with all those operas I could’ve won! In my defense, the Romans spent a small fortune to narrowly win, 3500 denarii per passenger, which adjusted for inflation is something like $150,000, that’s Cleopatra money!

Most travelers to Ephesus still opt for the Sea route, although the waterfront is now 20 miles away. There was a steady stream of stately cruise ships coming and going.

The weather forecast continued to threaten me, this time with 30 mph cross-winds for the final hilly stage. I really dreaded trying to navigate 4000 feet of climbing and descending with faulty breaks in a wind storm.

After a restless night, I started out, climbing through the first towns, finding it cold, yes, but not windy at all, rather calm, I only had to navigate the cows.

And the chill was doing wonders for my brake pads, they weren’t overheating and I was descending the 14-degree gradients just fine.

The final stretch of coastline was stupendous, the blue Aegean waters crashing against the rocky coast. I tried to get a good photo to celebrate the end of the bicycle ride.

Oh, that’s no good, I cut off my head and the bicycle. Maybe a wider angle?…

No, that looks weird, maybe if I rotate the camera vertically?…

Why’s the ocean turning down? I give up!

Bodrum harbor, the end of the Aegean coast, where all the Turks park their yachts, and I parked my bicycle. The medieval castle houses all the finds from the offshore shipwrecks over the past 3400 years.

It’s quite the collection, Egyptian artifacts which were 1000 years old when they went down with a ship 2000 years ago, glassware from Syria, a zillion wine and olive oil containers, and parts of the wooden hulls, reassembled on wire frames.

One of the 7 wonders of the ancient world stood here before being toppled by earthquakes, plundered by the crusaders for castle building material, and then picked over by the British museum…but there are a few overlooked pieces of sculpted marble left on site…take this 1 foot wide by 2 foot piece and extrapolate to a building 150 foot square by 150 tall, that’s quite the monument!

The city wall survived in better condition…for two days I enjoyed the walk to the grocery store and back along the wall, with views of the harbor and distant Greek islands.

But I’m ready to trade the sunny Aegean for the rainy Pacific Northwest…it’s time to undo this whole bit, though that is easier said than done…

Just 12 days to home: by bicycle, then car, then subway, a Rick Steves walking tour, airplane, then layover, a different airplane, then light rail, a ferry, then a bus, then a dozen blocks on foot in the dark and I’ll be home!