It’s Sunday today, which made most of the roads quieter than usual. We left Komotini around 8:30 am, heading east out of town. Since it was another longer day of 117 km (73 miles), with a border crossing, we were on a tight schedule. At the first coffee stop, the tour leader had pre-bought coffees and was handing them out, although all we really wanted was food, raiding the van for snickers bars and bananas.
The last few days in Greece, we’ve seen cotton balls along the side of the road. Today we saw a big, empty, cotton trailer go by with many cotton balls still stuck to its metal bars. Later, we passed it parked in a cotton field. Later on our route, a trailer full of cotton passed us, with cotton balls gently floating out.
We’d had a slight wind from the northeast on our way to the first coffee stop. Afterward, we climbed a hill and then hit a headwind coming down the other side to our second coffee stop. We had to stop for a photo for a break as we saw the Aegean Sea and the olive trees on the hill. Any break from the wind! It grew stronger and stronger as we made it to our second coffee stop at Alexandroupouli, which was a cute town along the sea. There, we got a delicious phyllo pastry wrapped around ricotta cheese and doused in sesame seeds and honey.
After Alexandroupouli, the headwind got even worse. For awhile, three of us were in a tight line, trying to rotate every 3 km (2 miles) to take turns bearing the brunt of the wind. We did stop once along the route. The wind was brutal! The final 7 km (4 miles) felt like the longest distance ever. Yet, finally we had reached the Greek side of the border! We walked all of our bikes through passport control into No Man’s Land. While waiting for the luggage van to clear passport control, we got some food and refreshments. Once the van cleared, we cycled across the bridge separating Greece and Turkey to get to Turkey’s passport control and customs. We had to wait for the luggage van to go through customs. Then, we were finally set to all pass through the enormous arches welcoming us to Turkey!
Due to Greece changing clocks last night but Turkey not participating in Daylight Savings Time, we gained an hour of sleep last night but then lost it again as soon as we crossed into Turkey. Battling a headwind most of the day didn’t help our overall speed today, either. We were supposed to cycle down into Ipsala to meet a bus to carry us all to Çannakale. However, it was so late by the time that we’d cleared the border that the bus met us right outside the border. All the luggage came out of the van and into the passenger bus with us. Then, the driver took us down to the Gallipoli Peninsula and across the 1915 Çannakale briodge, which is currently the longest suspension bridge in the world. Unfortunately by the time that we arrived, it was dark out; and, we couldn’t see much.
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