First ice

Reached Bulgaria at sunset yesterday, at the easternmost crossing on the E87 (which btw is a nice lonely curved highway, recently renovated on the Turkish side. The border crossing was fast, no queue, but the procedure was different again from Bodrum, Edirne and Ipsala. Nobody is stopping you, you have to go inside the building yourself to look for the officials. They will only stop you later if you don't.

The weather has been unbelievably favourable, +12 and sunny, and looks like continuing this way. Only in the morning the bike was covered in ice. Given this weather and the wonderful roads, it's such a shame that I haven't seen any other long-distance bikers this whole week, riding or parked or anything.

Yesterday crossed to Europe at Canakkale by ferry. The ferry is fast, cheap and goes every half hour. Hoped to do some riding on the peninsula there, but that just doesn't happen. The whole peninsula is the biggest war memorial I've ever seen, with marked battle sites everywhere, signposted with how many thousands of people were slaughtered at what time on the morning of April 25th 1915. The mountains also level out around there, so the only fun to be had was 6th gear gravel roads on the plains later.

The pic is from Pergamon the other day, which is a nice change, provided that you have satisfied the first hunger for riding mountain paths. The ruins are at a hilltop with good views, and the signs explain technical details like why were the Romans able to build a much larger terrace than the Greeks before them.