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Before we left Amsterdam
months ago we had been talking about cycling the Lycian way
between Fethiye and Antalya. The Lycian’s occupied this
region more than 2000 years ago before the Greeks, Romans,
Ottomans and Turkish. They set up the world’s first
democracy, were wealthy and left their mark in one of the
most scenic places in the world.
The official Lycian way is a
500KM walking tour off road through the mountains and you
can find really detailed maps, which include smaller roads,
good for cycling. So we planned our route to include as many
small roads as possible and jumped back on the bikes.
The first couple of days were
tough. Turkey’s coastline is super rugged and our legs were
struggling with the extreme gradients. The heat was also
incredible. We had expected Turkey to have cooled down by
now but the temperatures were still in the high 30’s, our
heads were pounding and clothes covered in salt.
Anyway thanks to the amazing
views and the constant encouragement from the Turkish
villagers we kept on cycling and our condition improved. The
people are so friendly, waving and tooting all day and
offering us Cay (Turkish tea) and not at one point did we
feel unwelcome. We also decided to change our routine so
we started cycling at sunrise and stopped for an afternoon
siesta and to eat more amazing, fresh, organic Turkish food.
In total we did the route in
about 9 days with 4 lazy days off in between and are now
staying in a 200 year old Ottoman pension in Antalya. We
stopped at as many little beaches and historic sites as
possible and did some of our best cycling yet along surely
one of the worlds nicest coastal roads. |
