walking east
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This post is about a 23km walk from Babaeski to Necatiye. I walk backwards, meet a strange traveler, and get some very good bread.
I woke up early, packed my stuff, left the Teachers’ House where I was staying, and walked back east.
After about twenty minutes I stopped. I had reached the historic Babaeski Bridge that I had passed in the darkness of the night before. It was almost 400 years old, and, unlike the Kanuni Sultan Suleiman Bridge near Istanbul that I had found so magnicifent, it was still serving traffic. Its arches were as strong as they were beautiful.
a bridge and a mosque
I took a few pictures while the town around me was waking up, then I went to the Cedid Ali Paลa Mosque.
The mosque was almost a hundred years older than the bridge. In fact it was the work of Sinan, the same architect who had built the Kanuni Sultan Suleiman Bridge. Sadly, it wasn’t 100% historic, as parts of it had been destroyed in a war and subsequently been rebuilt. I liked it anyway, and I ended up spending over an hour alone in its courtyard, taking photos and looking at the birds flying around the arches, the columns, the dome, and the minaret.
an Uruguayan walker
Of course the highway had not changed. It went up and down in an almost straight line pointing northwest. One time I ran into a guy who was walking on the opposite lane, coming in my direction. He was carrying a backpack and a plastic bag, and he was wearing a hat and a long coat.
I waved at him, so we met in the middle of the highway. I said I was from Germany, and he said he was from Uruguay. I asked him if he was traveling by walking, and he gave an answer that seemed to mean both yes and no at once. When I told him about the Lรผleburgaz Bicycle Academy, he wrote the name on a piece of paper, then he said goodbye and walked off.
And that was it.
what hospitality means
I continued walking on the highway until I arrived at a road that lead into a village. The village had a bakery and a shop. I bought a box of cream cheese in the shop, and when I wanted to buy some bread in the bakery the owners insisted that I should take it for free. And a simit on top of it. And another simit. They liked foreign guests, and they wanted me to feel welcome.
When I left the little village I turned around to look back at it. And for a moment, I was chewing on one of my simits in the afternoon sun, I imagined myself walking east instead of west.
pictures
The cat that guards the Teachers’ House in Babaeski:
Babaeski Bridge:
Babaeski waking up:
Cedid Ali Paลa Mosque:
Food truck on the way from Babaeski to Necatiye:
The traveler from Uruguay:
The road to walk from Babaeski to Necatiye:
Afternoon rest:
Bakers in Kuleli:
The village of Kuleli:
Ruined house near Necatiye:
Empty hotel dining hall in the hotel of Necatiye:
