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Istanbul!
  • Mark Holbrook
  • Mark Holbrook

Istanbul!

Une aventure de 27 jours par Mark En savoir plus
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  • Début du voyage
    26 avril 2026
  • Mark HolbrookIstanbul!Voyageur

    Valdepeñas

    26 avril, Espagne ⋅ ☀️ 24 °C

    Yes the wine place.....lots of limestone rocks (the Peñas) so really only grapes grow here. Big bronze age site right next to the road but closed until Tuesday.....well I have a gig for that!.....Just wondering how much of my bike will be here tomorrowEn savoir plus

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  • Mark HolbrookIstanbul!Voyageur

    Benageber

    27 avril, Espagne ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C

    I simply came along this road because it did the 'Dem Bones...Dem Bones...Dem Dry Bones' thing in connecting A to B...well WOW! Hair pin after hair pin as I glimpsed a flooded valley between the pine trees...known originally as the Generelisimo's Lake it involved the complete destruction of the original Benageber a stone or two of which can be seen at times of drought. In one of the drone photos you can see the road I slid down.En savoir plus

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  • Mark HolbrookIstanbul!Voyageur

    Ouch!

    30 avril, Italie ⋅ ⛅ 21 °C

    Well..not the day I expected....So I have tooth problems. This is normal for me, I go away and then have to find the local dentist. I think it is something in my genes. 60 years ago my father would have his dentures serviced in Margate when we were on holiday next door at Westgate and then spend the two weeks with no teeth. But I digress...on the ferry from Barcelona to Rome a filling fell out so I went to a dentist this morning expecting a temporary filling but she said the root was exposed and I was at risk of an abscess...so after much discussion I had it pulled out and an implant screwed into the hole. Very sore and then she told me I can only have liquids for a week!!!! On a different note, if you look at the vessel anchored off you will see it has three masts in the fore part but nothing aft...Any ideas what it is or how to use it's location and time to discover what it is?En savoir plus

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  • Mark HolbrookIstanbul!Voyageur

    Spoleto

    1 mai, Italie ⋅ ☀️ 17 °C

    I had hoped to take the quick route across Italy'cos I hurt but I end d up with the slow route....Google Maps is very difficult to follow when it keeps on flashing up alternative routes and you are on a motorbike with dozens of Italians trying to kill you with their nasty little cars....Anyway...slow route it was and I had to stop and take this snap....Papal Fortress and yes Lucrezia was 'ereEn savoir plus

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  • Mark HolbrookIstanbul!Voyageur

    Ancona

    1 mai, Italie ⋅ ☀️ 16 °C

    So the slow route meant I arrived having not stopped for 6 hours and instead of being early the boat was boarding. I found the ticket office easily enough and told the nice feller behind the counter I get lost very easily....so where is the boat? He points to a QR code...I snap it and off I go.....then I come back.....then I go again....third time round the carpark blindly following Google I realise the bunch of cones across an exit is actually because of a collapsed drain cover so I sneak past them and at last find some boats....Lots of boats.....more random driving around and there is a yellow sticky on a Harbour wall and I find the boat!En savoir plus

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  • Mark HolbrookIstanbul!Voyageur

    A bit bloody spartan

    3 mai, Grèce ⋅ ⛅ 11 °C

    Well today has not been nice. Over breakfast I looked at the forecast......SNOW....well that can't be right I thought....I know I am high up but it is Greece and it is May. So with he bike saying 5C off I go and wow it is cold. Then it started raining so I stop and change into my supposedly (amazon) light waterproof gear...well my inside dry state lasted for about 6 minutes leaving me convinced that Rukka's E1000 a jacket is money well spent....then it snowed. This is Leonidas at ThermopylaeEn savoir plus

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  • Mark HolbrookIstanbul!Voyageur

    Delphi

    3 mai, Grèce ⋅ 🌙 7 °C

    Well...quite something. The location is just magic. I pulled the same trick as at Cordoba and wandered in with the cleaners so that I had the place to myself.The bronze statue is apparently the first and only one found from antiquity....Found in 1860 and preserved due to a mudslide following an earthquake. Since then three have been found under the sea. Usually they were looted and melted down.En savoir plus

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  • Mark HolbrookIstanbul!Voyageur

    Go Away!

    6 mai, Turquie ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C

    Well ...no pictures of Cesme because the arrival there was not a nice experience. So there were four vehicles on the ferry...3 bikes including me and a very nice South Korean bloke driving a car he bought in England and had driven it here. We go through passport control...all sort of ok...and our bikes are now in a compound outside the building. Then we go to customs...the Korean goes first ...they look at his documents (why do they always turn them upside down...Is it some sort of ritual?) then they get cross. They tell him that because he does not have UK residency he cannot come in to Turkey with an English car. Now they are wrong...way, way wrong almost every lorry driver would break that rule but I shut up. The Korean is convinced the problem is his green card and he is still on the phone to his insurance company as they escort him back to the ferry. Then it is my turn. I hand over my UK passport, my green card and my Spanish metriculation....they turn it upside down.....then they look at the back ...then they look at me....I give them the ficha technica since it is another piece of paper.....then I give them my two international driving licenses....they turn them upside down...then I say 'Oh you want my residency card!' much relief all round....they had never heard of Portugal or seems. So through the first bit of customs now I have to go out into the street...walk to the other end of the port and come back in again through security to get my bike and have it x rayed in case I am smuggling a Syrian in my panniers. At security they say I have no stamp for a motorcycle and cannot come back into the port. I go back to customs walking past all the security and try to explain. They take my passport.....turn it upside down....and then shout at each other, a lot. I come out with six stamps and get out of Cesme as fast as I can.

    I stop at a winery and celebrate having just scraped into Turkey with a wine tasting.    En savoir plus

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  • Mark HolbrookIstanbul!Voyageur

    Ephesus

    7 mai, Turquie ⋅ ☀️ 12 °C

    Lived in for 8000 years and John lived here (Letter to the Ephesians?) What I didn't know is that Mary is meant to have died here after she was passed to John's care at the crucifixion. The council of Ephesus was held here in 360 AD. Fabulous place although a tsunami of Japanese were following me around.En savoir plus

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  • Mark HolbrookIstanbul!Voyageur

    For whom the bell....

    7 mai, Turquie ⋅ ☀️ 20 °C

    I have managed the tolls all the way here though I admit to some uncertainty about which gate to go through whilst a 150 tonne truck bears down at me with intention to kill. Here in Turkey though I had no idea at all...red gates, blue gates, green gates and not a soul or a machine to be seen to take your money. So the nice people at the winery explained you have to have a HGS account which you can set up at any Shell station unless you are a foreigner when you can't.... You have to do it at a PTT station ( turns out to be the post office) but not any PTT only big regional ones. So I go to a Big Regional One and it is closed....I gather with all the others needing the Big Regional PTT and wait ..En savoir plus

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  • Mark HolbrookIstanbul!Voyageur

    Hattusa

    10 mai, Turquie ⋅ ☀️ 19 °C

    The capital of the Hittites. 1600 BC housing 50,000 people within a defensive wall. The Hittites were so strong that they challenged Egypt concluding the world's first peace treaty with Ramases ii which is now on the United Nations' building in New York. At the centre of the city is a temple with a green jade block that has been there for over 3000 years.En savoir plus

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  • Mark HolbrookIstanbul!Voyageur

    Yazilikkaya

    11 mai, Turquie ⋅ ☁️ 13 °C

    A Hittite ceremonial site...two rock chambers with narrow paved entrances and open to the sky. I saw the location in Google maps close to where I was staying and went there first thing. A great privilege to have this atmospheric place to myself. Fantastically preserved carvings.En savoir plus

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