I was quite glad to see sunlight chasing away the darkness and finally I was able to see where I had spent the night. It did not look too bad, to my surprise, there was even a toilet with running water. According to a sign, the camp was partially financed by EU funds. These funds must have been rather scarce.

Stop!

This intersection did have a major consequence for the rest of my trip - this was when I realized I might as well ride on the major highways, there were in general two-by-two lane with a broad shoulder, let us call it "bike lane". The above picture was when I caught the first of the main roads, this one being road number D020. By the way, the previous day, I could have caught this, as vs. riding through the rural roads - but then I would have missed the adventure of sleeping with the wolves (again, after 10 years).

Shortly after catching this major road, I saw a sign warning cars of radar control and soon thereafter there actually was a car parked in the opposite direction at the top of a hill, a bit out of sight. I talked to the person sitting in the car, he told me that the speeding fine was around 1.000 Turkish Lira, or around €30. As far as I understood, the fines increase upon repeated violations.

In the afternoon, I reached the town of Vize - writing this story now, there would have been some ruins, but I missed these, I did see a market and a mosque.

Sunset

Watching the sunset, I made a stupid movement by the bike, whereby the front wheel wanted to fall off the side of the road, I managed to catch it - but the mud guard became crooked. It is quite a patience game putting it back in place, and it needs two people, one holding on one side, while the other side is being popped back in place. On the other side of the road was one the many (many!) police road checks, these were outside every major town, with sometimes all cars having to stop, at other times vehicles can just pass by. I saw the policemen taking a break and went over to them - they were really nice, three of them jumped on the bike and in within minutes, the mud guard was back in place. Tesekür!

It was dark by the time I got to a town called Saray, here I found an everything-but-elite Elit Hotel. The caretaker was a very nice person, he was a former soldier having been purged out of the army past the anti-Erdogan demos of 2016, he was one of the only persons I had met who had resentments against Erdogan. Saray, being not far from Istanbul (a modern place, not a fan of the dictator Erdogan), was a neat city, as the ex-soldier pointed out, there are not many women wearing hijab. I did find the city pleasant, it was clean and seemingly well-organized.

Former soldier

He recommended a restaurant, where I had quite a treat, see below. I must admit I spiced up the food a bit too much, so that I had to pay a price for this the following day...if you know what I mean (my apologies...).

Delicious treat

I bought some nuts for the following day, some baklawa, then returned to the hotel. There I was shocked to find out my cellphone was missing. I thought I had left it in the restaurant, so dashed back, to find it closed, daaarn, now I might have to wait till noon of the following day. Only then did I think of calling my number, so I stopped a pedestrian and with some language barrier, asked him to dial my number on WhatsApp. Luckily, someone answered and it no-one else than the baklawa salesman, while paying, I had placed my cell phone on the counter, he thought the phone belonged to him, so put it in his back pocket. I was glad to have my phone back, returned to the hotel, then dozed off for the night.

The production for that day was 115 kilometers, with roughly 700 meters of elevation. Here is the map.