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Istanbul!
  • Mark Holbrook
  • Mark Holbrook

Istanbul!

A 27-day adventure by Mark Read more
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  • Trip start
    April 26, 2026
    Mark HolbrookIstanbul!Traveler

    The Off!

    April 26 in Spain ⋅ ⛅ 15 °C

    Not as organized as normal....luggage is from the V85 so held on with lots of straps

  • Mark HolbrookIstanbul!Traveler

    Valdepeñas

    April 26 in Spain ⋅ ☀️ 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 tomorrowRead more

  • Mark HolbrookIstanbul!Traveler

    Cerro de las Cabezas

    April 27 in Spain ⋅ ☀️ 15 °C

    So this is the archeological site right next to the main road at Valdepeñas......closed of course but Have Drone and Can Fly...this is a complete iron age Iberian settlement from 700 to 300BC....never built over just left after a fire.Read more

  • Mark HolbrookIstanbul!Traveler

    Benageber

    April 27 in Spain ⋅ ☀️ 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.Read more

  • Mark HolbrookIstanbul!Traveler

    Peña Cortada

    April 27 in Spain ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C

    This is a Roman aqueduct carring water to the village across the valley. It is named for having been cut from the rock.....though I thought it more built from cut rocks however I digress...just very impressed that bits of it are still standingRead more

  • Mark HolbrookIstanbul!Traveler

    Castelló de la Plana

    April 27 in Spain ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C

    Much bigger place than I had expected with a painful one way system that prevents OAPs trying to get their Too Big motorcycles onto the hotel car park...Very Cross...Very Hot and Very Lost

  • Mark HolbrookIstanbul!Traveler

    A long wait

    April 28 in Spain ⋅ ⛅ 20 °C

    The boat was meant to leave at ten...now it boards at 1 in the morning. The knock on effect is that I arrive at midnight!.....No doubt I will find a doorstep somewhere...

  • Mark HolbrookIstanbul!Traveler

    Ouch!

    April 30 in Italy ⋅ ⛅ 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?Read more

  • Mark HolbrookIstanbul!Traveler

    Spoleto

    May 1 in Italy ⋅ ☀️ 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 'ereRead more

  • Mark HolbrookIstanbul!Traveler

    Ancona

    May 1 in Italy ⋅ ☀️ 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!Read more

  • Mark HolbrookIstanbul!Traveler

    Parga

    May 2 in Greece ⋅ ☀️ 13 °C

    Just thought I ought to have a pic of one idyllic beach.....I was told I couldn't park even before I had got my leg off the bike.

  • Mark HolbrookIstanbul!Traveler

    A bit bloody spartan

    May 3 in Greece ⋅ ⛅ 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 ThermopylaeRead more

  • Mark HolbrookIstanbul!Traveler

    Delphi

    May 3 in Greece ⋅ 🌙 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.Read more

  • Mark HolbrookIstanbul!Traveler
    1

    Hosios Luokas

    May 5 in Greece ⋅ ☀️ 13 °C

    Monastery up in the hills to the south east of Delphi. I passed the three Japanese tourist coaches on the way up so only had a few minutes before they swamped the place

  • Mark HolbrookIstanbul!Traveler

    Chios

    May 6 in Greece ⋅ ☀️ 13 °C

    Now I have some serious thinking to do... Turkey is really big and if I go to both Capadocia and Istanbul I am going to blow out my service interval on the bike.

  • Mark HolbrookIstanbul!Traveler

    Go Away!

    May 6 in Turkey ⋅ ☀️ 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.    Read more

  • Mark HolbrookIstanbul!Traveler

    Ephesus

    May 7 in Turkey ⋅ ☀️ 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.Read more

  • Mark HolbrookIstanbul!Traveler

    For whom the bell....

    May 7 in Turkey ⋅ ☀️ 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 ..Read more

  • Mark HolbrookIstanbul!Traveler

    Still Cold.

    May 7 in Turkey ⋅ ⛅ 18 °C

    One thing about this trip that came totally unexpected is how cold it has been....here I am well in to the south of Turkey and that is definitely snow!

  • Mark HolbrookIstanbul!Traveler

    99 Luftballoons.....

    May 9 in Turkey ⋅ ☁️ 8 °C

    Yes I got here early, yes I staked it out the day before but this time no hoards of Japanese 'cos they are all in the bloody sky!

  • Mark HolbrookIstanbul!Traveler
    1

    Goreme

    May 9 in Turkey ⋅ ☀️ 10 °C

    So more wonderfulness round every corner

  • Mark HolbrookIstanbul!Traveler

    Hattusa

    May 10 in Turkey ⋅ ☀️ 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.Read more

  • Mark HolbrookIstanbul!Traveler

    Yazilikkaya

    May 11 in Turkey ⋅ ☁️ 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.Read more