Our first brief morning stop was at one of Ankara’s main landmarks, Atakule. This 125 m (0.07 miles) high communications and observation tower in the Çankaya district of central Ankara can be easily spotted from almost anywhere in the city. This monument to modernity features an open terrace at the top section of the tower and a revolving restaurant named Sevilla, which makes a full 360° rotation every hour. There’s another restaurant below the cupola, as well as a café, named UFO. The lower section of the tower houses a shopping mall and even more restaurants, both indoors and outdoors.
This Post is part of 15-day motorbike ride from Lebanon to Bulgaria across Turkey and back. Use the links at the end of the post for more insights about this adventure, the challenges and achievements
Since we hadn’t planned to visit this place, we stopped for a short while and just took a few photos from a distance before getting back on our bikes. A ride of at least five hours and over 550 km (341.7 miles) still lay ahead of us.
Leaving Ankara behind, we saw the scenery starting to change from a relatively straight road cutting through the flat fields of yellow crops to more of a winding mountain road surrounded by green bushes and trees that became denser as we approached Istanbul. It’s always a joy to experience safe riding in such pleasant road conditions. We were not aiming for speed along this stretch but were simply winding our way along with the road and enjoying every minute of it.
After a few stops at gas stations to refuel as well as to rest and plan the next part of the route, we reached the Bosphorus Bridge that afternoon. It was a milestone in our ride that we needed to document. We stopped on the side of the road to take in the immensity of the bridge. Its importance lies in the fact that the 1,560 m (0.96 miles) bridge extends from Ortaköy in Europe to Beylerbeyi in Asia.
After I’d fixed the GoPro on my helmet and Chantal had got her mobile camera ready, we rejoined the stream of traffic crossing the bridge. It felt like such an achievement when we got to the other side—we were almost halfway to Bulgaria! We wanted to mark our achievement somehow, and decided to have a look at the boulevard under the bridge. As we approached the city though, the traffic got slower and denser, and we had to weave our way through suffocating traffic in between buses, taxies and mopeds. It wasn’t very enjoyable, but we decided to stop next to the Dolmabahçe Palace to take some photos on our way into the tight and crowded street by the beach. This palace, located on the European coast of the Bosphorus, is one of the landmarks of Istanbul. The palace served as the main administrative center of the former Ottoman Empire for several years in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The palace is mainly composed of a vast complex of former imperial pavilions and villas. It was also used as a residence by the Sultan and his court in the late 19th century.
We continued our way to the busy center, parked our bikes and started to walk. The streets were packed with tourists and locals, souvenir merchants, and plenty of street stands selling doner kebabs, ice cream and fresh juice. After wandering around exploring for almost an hour, we decided to have dinner at Bomonti Brasserie and drink a toast to celebrate our achievement. We ordered some food and had a bit of fun while listening to Turkish music with some international songs. The brasserie served the purpose.
A couple of hours had passed very quickly, and the dusk came as a surprise. Realizing that we needed a place to rest our tired bones for the night, we headed to the center of Istanbul, hoping to find a reasonably priced room. We searched non-stop for almost two hours using the internet and by checking at the hotel receptions. It was approaching 10 pm and we still hadn’t found a room, plus our phones and power banks had died, so we decided to park the bikes and each go in a different direction, meeting up at the same point every 30 minutes until one of us succeeded. I can’t deny it was stressful; especially when some of the locals tried to take advantage of our situation by giving us inflated rates. Lady Luck finally smiled upon us at around 11 o’clock when we found the Istanbul Diamond Royal hotel (don’t be fooled by the name) that would accommodate us for one night, on condition that we checked out before 8 am. We accepted the deal. We two had to spend the night in a 10 sqm. room with only a double bed and a small chair, and had to step over all our stuff to reach the toilet. What a strange night we spent!
We didn’t hang around the next morning. By 7 am we’d we had breakfast and were all set, ready to hit the road out of Istanbul. Any biker will understand the urge we had to leave such an overcrowded city!
Farewell Istanbul…we’ll be back another time.
Read the whole adventure, day by day. Click on the links below
- TAKING THE FERRY BOAT FROM TRIPOLI, LEBANON TO MERSIN, TURKEY
- THE ROAD IS OURS: DESTINATION CAPPADOCIA
- UP AND ABOVE CAPPADOCIA
- THE ROAD TO ANKARA
- CROWDED ISTANBUL
- FROM WHEAT FIELDS TO SUNFLOWERS AT THE BULGARIAN BORDERS
- A PROMISE IS A CLOUD; FULFILLMENT IS RAIN
- WEATHERED IN VARNA
- LONG ROAD TO A SECLUDED BEACH HOTEL
- THANK YOU BODRUM FOR THE BREAK!
- THE BEACH IS CALLING! MARMARIS
- ON THE ROAD AGAIN
- BACK TO SQUARE ONE
- HOW DID IT ALL START?
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