Doubilet-Benson Orient Express Bike Trip 2014: Crossing Into Turkey: Another Country, Another World

At mile 41 of our 68-mile ride today (Wednesday 9/17), we crossed the border from Bulgaria into Turkey. The daylong bike ride was fantastic: rolling hills with excellent views, a strong tailwind, very little traffic, and only a couple of annoying dogs.

The change from Romania and Bulgaria to Turkey was dramatic. In the former two countries, the countryside was full of trash and decaying buildings, and the small-to-medium sized towns had crumbling old buildings and Communist-era large apartment blocks that must have been horrendous when new and are now falling apart. Food was hard to find and of poor quality. There was little activity on the streets, and there were few stores (often closed) with meager merchandise.

As soon as we crossed into Turkey, things changed markedly. The road was well paved and had a very wide shoulder (an important feature when biking), and we had a tasty, nutritious lunch at a roadside restaurant. When we arrived at our destination town of Edirne, the architecture was totally different from what we had been seeing for the past 10 days: interesting buildings in fairly good shape, mosques everywhere, and no bland concrete apartment hulks. But the most striking difference was that the streets were alive, crowded with people and full of bustling stores and restaurants.

Edirne is a city of 150,000 that is close to the border with Greece (4 miles) and Bulgaria (12 miles). It has a long and varied history. The building of the city is described in Greek mythology, and it was subsequently re-founded (or founded) by the Roman emperor Hadrian and named Hadrianopolis. Since then, it has changed hands numerous times, belonging at various times to Greece, Bulgaria, Russia, and the Ottomans. It served as the third capital of Ottoman Empire 1365-1453, before Constantinople became final capital. The area around Edirne has been the site of no fewer than 16 major battles or sieges, and a military historian identifies the region as "the most contested spot on the globe"

The city is a thriving center of commerce for woven textiles, silks, carpets and agricultural products. Among its many mosques is the notable Selimiye Mosque, built in 1575 and considered to be one of the highest achievements of Islamic architecture. It was included on UNESCO's World Heritage List in 2011. The dome of the building had the largest diameter of all domes in the world for several centuries, and its four tall minarets are the second highest in the world.

Shacks in the Bulgarian countryside

A ominous road sign as we biked in Bulgaria this morning: ? bears, ? terrorists. It didn't stop us, and we soon found that it was referring to a sharp curve in the road.