Reaching Edirne, we spent too long searching for a good (read cheapest in town) hotel room before settling on the first place we had visited – isn’t it always the way? The afternoon saw us scouring town for a map of Turkey only to be told at tourist information that no maps were available before Istanbul. We meet a French cycle tourist outside the office and break the bad news. The previous day we had seen a map of Turkey in a Greek gas station about a 40 kilometre round trip away but passed it up as it cost a very steep €12. I quickly told Emma I could ride there and back to get the map as it now seemed priceless and she as quickly agreed that I should go. A few hours later, after confusing the Greek and Turkish border guards, making the gas station guy smile and enjoying my first long unloaded ride for months I was back in Edirne with map in hand. The next day in Edirne was spent planning our route ahead, getting knives sharpened, visiting a few local mosques, eating delicious salad meals in our hotel room and wandering streets that came alive after dark with the end of the daily Ramadan fast.

Having heard from Guy and Freddie at A Bike Journey about a route along the D020 to Istanbul we had decided to follow suit and left Edirne along a busy road that quickly turned into rolling countryside. Our first cycling lunch stop in a remote picnic spot attracts quite a crowd with families, kids and local workmen all curious about our route and keen to help us out. Some of the kids are having trouble with my name so I’m temporarily known as “Chester”. In the afternoon we head up a side road towards Uskup to find a camp spot.  I cycled way too far ahead giving Emma a long chase before she could tell me that we’d passed a dirt track leading to a good shaded spot under trees, but I did find a water fountain. Our first night camping I was kept awake by the Adhan (call to prayer) as it seemed to float disembodied through the trees, distant gun shots, the ever present rustling of trees and critters and maybe just a touch of excitement that we were almost in Istanbul!

The following day we’d done only a few kilometres before we passed a group of four cyclists dismantling tents and packing bikes behind a roadside fruit vendors stall. Stopping to chat we discovered they had a similar idea to us to detour from the D020 out to the coast to Kiyikoy. Having three German and one English cyclists to chat with as we cycled made the distance fly by and being now a group of six cyclists we attracted even more attention than previous days with almost constant waving and tooting and a police escort to the centre of Vize where we got a little lost on the outskirts of the town.

We arrive at Kiyikoy after a speedier afternoon of cycling than we are used to but glad to be at the beach for a swim in the Black Sea. A weird situation manifests at the campsite where we pay to camp but then ignore the owners instructions as to where we should pitch tents, as we want to set up closer to beach. Much later we decide we are now camping in a picnic area and probably shouldn’t have paid for the privilege. No other campers around though and quiet night is had by all including the local dogs whose glowing eyes surround our tents through the night.

The road from Kiyikoy back inland is less hilly than the outward leg and sees us arrive in Saray in time for a restaurant lunch of huge kebabs and yummy curry like dishes. We are a bit shocked at the price of the meal (€25 for three people) adding to our impression that Turkey is not as cheap as we were expecting and reminding us to check prices before ordering. We sit out the heat of the afternoon under trees chatting, before a mad dash ahead of thunder clouds sees us in a secluded field for the night. Clouds turn out to be a false alarm while after dark the Adhan seems to encourage all local dogs to join in and the local town drummer round in the wee hours (to wake people to eat before sunrise) contributes to another unsettled nights sleep.

Our second to last day before Istanbul continues through hilly countryside, before we find a group of French cyclists (one of whom we met briefly in Edirne), and stop to chat and invite them to lunch with us in the nearby town. The sight of ten cycle tourists eating lunch attracts a gang of children. The French cyclists were travelling slower than our group and they waved goodbye to us all, pausing in the town for a few hours more and videoing local kids for their road movie.

The afternoon sees us encounter road works and the two lane D020 turns into a four lane motorway-like road. We fly along 20 km on a wide hard shoulder as passing lorries thunder and toot at us, with the outskirts of Istanbul in our distant sights for the last few kilometres. Searching for a free camp spot we ask at one local private picnic area where the owner says we can’t camp but to try a little further down the road. We try the next picnic spot and are allowed in to camp, cook dinner together and have celebratory beers for our last night on the road as a group of six. The next day the other guys will head into central Istanbul and the end of their trip while we will be staying in Yenikoy with Warm Showers hosts.

This road into Istanbul is surprisingly green and quiet and before we know it we are gazing on the Bosphorous with smiles all round. We farewell Dave, John, Sasha and Florene and have a quick chai at a waterfront cafe before meeting our hosts Andrea and Thomas who we plan to stay with for a few nights before heading onwards towards Cappadocia.

The next days in Istanbul fly by in a flurry of activity that sees us have lunch and a swim at friends of our hosts, visit one set of potential flatmates for our return to Istanbul, walk miles along Istanbul streets as we try to get a little familiar with areas and geography. We sit poolside on the Asian side of Istanbul a little overwhelmed by what we’ve just achieved and with the question of what to do for winter at the forefront of our minds.

The afternoon before we leave we do the rounds of a few hostels trying to bargain a good price for a week’s room rental when we arrive back in Istanbul at the end of September. We return exhausted to a much welcome BBQ with Andrea and Thomas before collapsing into bed feeling overwhelmed by the last week of cycling, arriving in Istanbul and preparations to leave the next day.

Here are some facts and figures from our short time in Greece:

• 42 km cycled (39 km from the Bulgaria border and 3 km to the Turkish border)
• 1 night free camping by the river in a old festival camping space
• 2 pork giros consumed (Greek kebabs mmmm)
• 2 early morning Greek coffees drunk
• 1 sandy river swim (plus Emma walked across the river road)
• 0 mechanical failures or breakages of any description (alright!)
• 0 words of Greek learnt

Justin will remember: Returning to a petrol station for a map of Turkey within 24 hours of having left Greece – 38km round trip.

Emma’s we’re in Greece moment: Finding a snack shop open which sells Giros. We had been thinking about this Greek speciality for the last 30 kilometres and my only authentically Greek sample didn’t disappoint!

Lunch

Two Giros filled with pork, french fries, lettuce, tomato and mustard washed down by an ice cold Amstel.

Here are some facts and figures from our time in Bulgaria:

• 638 km cycled (longest day 109 km on the day we entered Bulgaria, shortest day 20 km)
• 0 nights in campsites (there weren’t any enroute!), 6 nights free camping, 5 nights in real beds inc 1 night with tobacco farmers
• 2 broken chains on bikes – 1 for each of us
• 5 new holes in tent from trapped crickets
• 5 tomatoes given to us by strangers
• 3 days we battled swarms of flies on long slow up-hill climbs
• 3 frappes drunk (by Justin)
• 2 conversations held in languages other than English or Bulgarian (Spanish and Italian)
• 2 fresh pears given to us as gifts
• 2 swims in thermal water (thanks Emma’s old workmates for the leaving present)
• 2 ice cold cokes offered while we filled up with water
• 1 very memorable home cooked meal
• 1 cheek pinched by elderly villager (Emma’s)

Justin will remember: Meeting local people intent on giving us directions and finding yet more holes in Bessie our tent.

Emma’s best cycling moments: First uphill climb for ages to ski field stormy free camp then pure downhill the following morning.

We have space to put up the tent inside our room to fix recent grasshopper holes, bicycle maintenance is completed and we cross things off a huge list of mundane chores which we’ve been meaning to complete for months. We ask reception about washing clothes with our phrasebook in hand and they send us back to our room with a cloth filled with washing powder and a huge plastic tub. Three hot days slip by and we are back on the bicycles early with a new supply of energy for the stretch to Istanbul.

The cycling is fairly flat until we hit the village of Troyan and the 1600m Troyan pass behind it. We’re not far from the top when we spot chair lift poles for a nearby ski resort which we think might be an interesting spot for camping. We find some people sitting outside a building, where the grass looks perfect for camping and manage to bridge the language gap by showing them our phrasebook and gesturing at the flat ground.

We’ve just established that we can camp, put up the tent and pulled out our cooking gear when a thunderstorm starts. Justin braves cooking outside and every now and then I can hear him laughing as the owner of the house comes out to communicate to him. We think she may have been inviting us into the building, but we’ve just finished cooking and can think of nothing better than staying in our snug tent and enjoying the rain.

The next morning we’re invited in for coffee as we’re packing up and a sleepy 16 year old is summoned. Iliya’s family own the motel and he is here helping his grandmother out. He has been studying English and is good company– we drink coffee and eat biscuits with him while discussing skiing, cycling ambitions and Bulgaria’s relationship with neighbouring countries. Suddenly its 10am and our early start isn’t quite so early. We finish packing and are sent off with pears for breakfast and complete the last five kilometres to the top of the pass before one of the best descents since Italy – 20 wiggly kilometres with views to the next set of mountain ranges in the south.

In Bulgaria we’ve had a new language and alphabet to learn and we suspect this is why we have started to struggle to get provisions, namely fruit and vegetables. Today we can’t spot a supermarket in the reasonably big town of Karlovo and assume we’ll find one on the way out of town but it doesn’t materialise. We spend the afternoon stopping at tiny village mini-markets which don’t have any fresh produce, frustrating when we can see big fields of peppers and chillis being cultivated on the fields around us. An old lady is selling tomatoes on the roadside and we stop to buy some from her, ending up with three huge tomatoes she refuses payment for. We camp with permission from a farmer next to a newly planted cabbage patch which recedes into the far distance. He warns us to pitch early to avoid mosquitoes and we’re thankful for the advice.

With only a few days left in Bulgaria we head south towards hills again to Minerali Bani where we decide to stop to take in the thermal waters at Hotel Bulgaria. It only took three room changes before we’re in a huge space with equally large balcony for the princely sum of 35 euros including free entry into the spa complex below. We make full use of the facilities before heading out for dinner and leave late the next day – somewhat reluctantly, as we are the cleanest and most refreshed we have been for the whole trip.

With one more night of free camping before the Greek border the crops have changed again, this time to big fields of tobacco. We stop early on a minor road and Justin wanders off to investigate camping options. He’s gone for a long time, and I can hear voices coming from behind the trees he headed into. Finally he comes back with news of a sort – he thinks we can camp, but the tobacco farmers he was talking to had asked us to return at 8pm so they could take us somewhere to eat, maybe. We go back twice to talk to them and I eventually pull out our phrasebook so we can ask how far away they want to take us.

Still confused, we have a few hours to wait. We cook some food and watch shepherds bringing their herds down the hill towards us, wondering if we’ll have to camp in this spot which is starting to look quite busy. Just before 8pm Sabrina comes up the path to greet us, followed by her husband Savatine. We follow their white Lada back to the village where we filled bottles with water a few hours ago. Their son Rian comes back with supplies from the shop while Sabrina sits on a step making dinner and laughing with us as we try to communicate. She shows us the property including a shed housing three cows (all named), a hutch with rabbits and chickens, and a huge vegetable garden. It starts to make sense that vegetables aren’t available in shops here as most people grow their own. We’re fed well including cucumber soup, grilled peppers, tomato salad and freshly brought fish from the market with conversation aided by an English speaking neighbour who invites us to his house for a late evening coffee and showers. Despite our protests we’re given the parents bedroom for the night as they’ll be up again in a few hours for more tobacco leaf harvesting.

We cycle past the fields in the morning to say goodbye – both to the family and to Bulgaria as our border crossing to Greece is just ahead.

The below documents what two hungry cyclists ate in one day in Bulgaria.

Breakfast

Emergency first breakfast of greasy banitsa (local pastie) with white cheese filling (they only come with white cheese filling). Second breakfast of muesli (hidden in photo) with sort of savoury yogurt and fresh pear eaten down the road after we had found the main shopping area of the village.

Mid-morning snack

Snack shop bread roll with white cheese inside and sprinkled with some sort of vegetable salt.

Lunch

Freshly baked rolls filled with beef rissoles and a giant Bulgarian tomato. The apple below was officially declared the best apple of the trip so far.

Pre-swim snacking

Paprika Chio crisps (average) and plain biscuits eaten to ensure we had energy for swim and sauna.

Dinner

Dinner out at a mehana, from left: tomato salad, toast (!), some sort of meat stew, french fries, tarator soup made with cucumber and yogurt and served cold.  Justin’s dish of chicken in a mushroom sauce not pictured. Suffice to say we were satisfied.

The road towards Vidin is largely traffic free and the wide empty spaces seem to be filled with a light more harsh and direct than we are used to from Serbia. The fields are filled with long dry grass and few animals or people are to be seen. Reaching Vidin Justin visits a supermarket while Emma narrowly escapes being adopted by a local who speaks Italian. The outskirts of Vidin are dusty and seemingly in a permanent state of construction as horses and carts, bicycles, lorries, buses and us jostle for space on a road that alternates between dirt, potholes and occasional glorious tarmac.

Our first campsite in Bulgaria sees us battling plagues of mosquitoes not seen since our days along the Po River – ahh the pleasures of cycling near the Danube! As the sun sets we huddle in our tent and hear a strangely human and very chilling series of howls that make us huddle a little closer. Emma hesitantly asks “Wolves?”while I imagine creatures from outer space, maybe with pitchforks! A sleepless night follows but no more howling is heard.

The next day we continue towards Lom leaving any traces of the main road behind as we whizz through tiny dusty towns where the road is more pothole than sealed. The locals either stare in amazement or shout encouragement in Bulgarian to which we can only wave and smile in response. Lom is much bigger than either of us expected and we decide to find a cafe with internet to work and research for a few hours. Leaving town we stop to fill our cooker with petrol for the first time before cycling up a state highway (read: very busy) paved with macadam (cobblestones as we know them). As trucks thunder by and I try to guide my tyres around missing cobbles and various holes I wonder that if this is a state highway what do the rest of the roads in Bulgaria hold for us?

Our afternoon ride passes through a number of towns that look to have seen better days with boarded up shops, empty cafes and locals sitting quietly at the roadside with open jaws as we pass by. Stopping for water at a gas station we are offered cans of coke for free despite our protestations that water is enough. We notice that the attendant has the mannerism of “reverse head nodding” (sorry if this sounds politically incorrect) as we know it, meaning they nod to mean no, and shake their head when they mean yes. This makes our conversations in pigeon Bulgarian even more confusing and ripe for misunderstanding.

Pitching our tent beside a quiet fishing lake, we discover new holes in Bessie the tent. Under investigation, the culprits become clear – two trapped grasshoppers have chewed holes in the fly while trying to escape. In anger we squish them but calming down, the rest of our evening is spent watching our own private aerial display in the form of huge flocks of starlings swooping across the sky backlit by the setting sun.

Our first stop at a tiny cafe the next day ends with us sharing a table with the owner and most of the patrons as we peruse our map and they plan our onwards route for us. The general plan from them is “main roads are fast, direct and well surfaced so go that way”, they are not convinced by our desire for quiet winding back roads. Downing a barley based drink they kindly bought us that left me reminded of medicine I had as a child, we cycled on promising we would follow their directions faithfully. The next town holds an all important bread shop and while packing the bread away we are given three tomatoes from a passing car where the occupants shake their heads and smile in disbelief at us.

The next morning as we are packing up from our deserted hill top camp a horse and cart drives slowly by the farmer and son staring with wide eyes at us as we smile and wave back. Stopping in Cherven Brag we struggle to find a bread shop for the first time on our trip to date and are lead out of town by a local on his bicycle who proudly speaks a few words of English and points us in the right direction. The afternoon is a mix of agriculture and lightly forested hills but the one constant is the presence of flies both the regular and biting horse variety. After a few hours of battling heat, flies and hills our tempers are frayed and we are struggling to find a campsite. We settle in a slightly secluded field and eat our least gourmet meal to date – potatoes, cabbage and cheese, while listening to noise from the local bar not far from our tent.

Awaking to gunshots early the next day I immediately feel in better spirits with only 18km to Lovech. We are encouraged to quickly pack up by the presence of hunters in the field next to our tent. Their dogs sniff our tent but are called back to assist with retrieving the shot birds as the hunters wave at us. We pass the 7000km milestone after only a few kilometres and with our spirits raised we are quickly entering the town centre and marvelling at the bright flowers and modern art that fills the largely deserted square. I’m already feeling at home here and contemplating staying a few days to rest up.

Here are some facts and figures from our time in Serbia:

• 884 km cycled (longest day 115 km, shortest day 46 km)
• 2 nights in campsites (1 for free), 6 nights free camping, 7 nights with roof over head (including 2 hotel nights)
• 100+ canoeists shared hospital grounds with us overnight
• 8 days cycling along the Danube river
• 3 thunderstorms, all while we were in shelter
• 3 navigation devices broken (Garmin Dakota GPS, Map case, laptop screen)
• 2 ferry rides (one with our bikes across the Danube for free – see photo)
• 2 restaurant meals (one thanks to Aleksander and Milica)
• 1 bicycle crash – Loss of concentration by Justin saw him swerve across road and almost stack a fully loaded touring bike into a ditch
• 1 broken chain link – Emma’s bike again
• 1 town we were escorted out of by a local on a scooter (we guess Knicanin wasn’t expecting any touring cyclists)
• 1 gypsy wedding almost drove us off the road then held traffic up for a horse drawn parade

Justin will remember: Spending our first night in Serbia in a tiny farmhouse eating home made cheese and talking late into the night with Aleksander.

Emma’s best cycling day: marvelling at the view over to Romania while cycling along the Dobra National Park and catching sight of a huge face carved into the cliffs opposite.