Tag Archives: Turkey 🇹🇷
no kalimera, no kalispera, and no kalinixta
This post is about a 47km walk from Edirne to Svilengrad. I fail to enter Greece and decide to walk directly into Bulgaria instead. Greece, Hellas, the cradle of Europe. Homer and Alexander, Socrates, Aristotle, and Rotting Christ. It sounded like a promise. I had been pondering over the map for months and years, and […]
and here’s to you, Turkey
This post is about a toast in Punto Shot Bar Pizza in Edirne. It’s also about a visit to the Grand Synagogue, and about cats. I wanted to say goodbye to Turkey today. It had taken me a long time to walk from its eastern end to the west, from Hopa on the border with […]
soup kitchen
This post is about a day spent at the Complex of Sultan Bayezid II in Edirne. We also visit the Selimiye Mosque, but it’s under renovation. This morning I took a taxi across town to have breakfast with a family I had met the day before. They had spent a long time in Germany, and […]
mosques and horror
This post is about a 13km walk within Edirne. I visit a bunch of beautiful mosques and see something disturbing. Today was going to be easy. I wanted to walk from the southeastern edge of Edirne to its northwest, to a location that was in the old town and a bit closer to the border. […]
pet cemetery
This post is about a 33km walk from Necatiye to Edirne. I hang out at a gas station, and I see a lot of road kill. When I left the hotel it was totally empty except for an old lady sweeping the floor. I asked her for a bit of hot water to fill my […]
walking east
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 […]
“the orient”
This post is about a 25km walk from Lüleburgaz to Babaeski. There’s a cow skull, a ruin, and an orientalist sunset. I hung out with Inanc of the Lüleburgaz Bicycle Academy until it was almost noon, then I got going. The highway was the same as before, only the landscape wasn’t. There seemed to be […]
bikes
This post is about a 17km walk from Büyükkaristiran to Lüleburgaz. It starts out bad, but then I run into a guy who tells me something good. I didn’t feel the cold when I woke up, I felt it when I went about packing my stuff: the sleeping bags, the ground pad, the tent. Everything […]
cough, cough, cancer
This post is about a 35km walk from Corlu to Büyükkaristiran. I come through industrial wastelands that remind me of China at its worst. The first thing I noticed was a security camera next to some trees. Then I saw the fence and the signs that said it was a military area. A few minutes […]
I just can’t shut up
This post is about a 30km walk from Canta to Corlu. It’s a cold day on an industrial highway, and I almost get into trouble. There was industry on my left and industry on my right. Factories that produced concrete, factories that produced windows, factories that produced chocolate. I got so bored that I went […]
look what the airline dragged in
This post is about a day spent at the Eser Diamond Hotel in Canta. I do my laundry, use the sauna, and run into some sad airline passengers. I decided to stay another day and wash my clothes. Washing took forever. I used a plastic bowl and some detergent I carried in a box, and […]
sideways
This post is about a 16km walk from Silivri to Canta. It’s a cold day with some snowfall that comes at me sideways. When I left the town of Silivri, the first thing I marvelled at was a row of colorful houses right in its center. Or rather: there were two rows, one on each […]
gaiter style
This post is about a 17km walk from Kumburgaz to Silivri. It snows heavily, which is great until I fall down some stairs. Something was strange this morning. Whatever was behind the window, it was so… bright. I got up and pulled back the curtains, and there it was: snow. And not just a little […]
so magnicifent
This post is about a 21km walk from Büyükcekmece to Kumburgaz. I cross the historic Kanuni Sultan Suleiman Bridge and see a nice sunset. This part of The Longest Way seems to be all about bridges. There was one more of them to cross on my way out of Istanbul, and I dreaded it. On […]
how am I supposed to get up?
This post is about a windy day in Büyükcekmece. I wake up late in a dark room, then I go to a café and stay there for the rest of the day. I had stayed up late doing my laundry. The rule of changing my socks daily was still intact, so there was a lot […]
angry angry lady
This post is about a 17km walk from Avcilar to Büyükcekmece. It leads me through one of the worst places I’ve ever come through. What a day. I had stayed the night in a small but clean hotel in one of the backstreets of Avcilar, and so my mood wasn’t too bad when I started […]
looking at myself
This post is about a 26km walk from Istanbul to Avcilar. It’s easy, then tricky, then easy again. The end feels like torture. I had a leisurely breakfast, then I used the maintenance elevator to move the Caboose out of the basement. I left the five-star hotel through a door that was being held open […]
teehee
This post is about a 13,8 walk in Istanbul. I meet a man who has some answers, then I cross the Yedikule Gate. The other day I received an email from a reader remarking how seldom I’ve been using the word “awesome” to describe things lately. It’s true. My guess is that the Pandemic, my […]
moments
This post is about a 12km walk in Istanbul. I pass Taksim Square and cross the Galata Bridge. Then I take a rest at the Hagia Sophia. One morning my phone stopped working, and I had a message from Turkcell telling me that my time was up. They were right. I had spent three months […]
ode to Kadiköy
This post is about the part of Istanbul that’s called Kadiköy and how awesome I think it is. Because of liberalism, and because of cats. I used to refer to the European side of Istanbul as the “fun side”. Looking at the map made it seem that way to me, maybe because most of the […]