August 24, 2012
One morning, three countries: Svilengrad - Edirne (Turkey)
| Heart | 0 | Comment | 0 | Link |
THIS IS a crowded part of a crowded continent and in just three hours this morning we rode in three countries.
We left Bulgaria with a heavy heart, because it has been our favourite country so far, popped into Greece to avoid a busier route elsewhere, then emerged in Turkey. It was quite a ride.
Well, quite a ride in terms of geography although actually uneventful all the way to the Turkish border since most of the way we were on the shoulder of a wide and little used autoroute that was as quiet as the country lanes we could have taken but got the job over faster. We wanted an afternoon off, sleeping mainly. The faster the ride, the better.
What made the day eventful was our entry into Turkey. All borders we have crossed so far have been of little consequence. Until Croatia, which is outside the Schengen area, there were no manned crossings at all. Just a change of road surface and a border sign and sometimes not even that.
Turkey put an end to that. Decades have passed since I have been over such a well-armed border. First came two soldiers with machine guns across their chest. They stood in the road, expecting the first tanks of an invasion, and defied us to carry on riding. When we stopped, they said 'No stop here.' So we rode on.
Then came the red border sign showing we were in Turkey. Within sight of the No Stop Here boys, I leaned my bike against it and took two photos.
There were no signs saying I couldn't - they came later - and no shouting or shots from the sentry post. I rode on.
Then came three more soldiers, young, not threatening but not the sort to tell jokes and expect a good laugh. All three had guns across their front and a hand resting where it would be useful. One spoke in Turkish. I didn't understand. He pointed the way we had come and mimed taking a photo. We weren't going in if the picture didn't please. I set the camera working and he peered at the screen, saw nothing objectionable - hard to think what secret weapons may have been stored in a hundred metres railed by barbed wire - and nodded me on with the hint of a smile.
Then came something that made even less sense. For there is just one office, traffic going both ways, and officials behind reinforced glass have to ask each traveller whether he is entering or leaving. Coming into Greece from Bulgaria, the border is the edge of Schengen. France is in Schengen but Britain isn't. The border official in his dust-brown uniform merely looked at the cover of my French passport but opened Steph's British one and studied it.
Turkey is outside not just Schengen but the EU. We need passports. In Greece we could have used our identity cards. Steph handed over both passports - and had to pay an entry fee while I didn't. It took us back to entering America, where we had to buy a six-dollar ticket as though we were going to the movies. And that on top of a whopping price for our visas.
Well, it all makes the fun of travel, even if the cobbled road to the middle of Edirne could have been more fun. And then the sensory onslaught of our first Turkish town. The noise. The commotion. The minarets, not just one but a cluster of six on a huge and beautiful mosque.
Traffic wriggled everywhere and hooted, encouraged by men in blue overalls placidly taking up cobblestones and relaying them over 50 metres in a main street.
It was what we came for - and this is western Turkey, only across the border - but the contrast with easy Bulgaria and quiet Greece was like half a dozen drummers in your ear.
But what fun!
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 2 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 0 |