The coastal roads from Troy, dotted with some more ruins, looked promising on my map and I decided to take the scenic route.
I first drove to the ruins of Alexandria Troas.
The bath of Alexandria Troas are not fenced in and I could ride right up to it and walk around as I liked. I felt like a little kid on a big adventure playground.
Following the coast brought me to Babakale, which has an old fort and scenic harbor. Somehow I forgot to take a picture.
Poppies everywhere
A short time later I passed a scenic mountain village on the road to Assos
Assos, of “Aristotle lived there” fame, looks very impressive from a distance.
The cobblestone streets leading up to the ruins are lined with small restaurant and shops. An ideal place for a tea.
I explored the ruins for about an hour
before heading down the hill again, where I came across one of the old East German MZs still in use in Turkey. I used to have one myself.
An old bridge could be seen from its modern counterpart as I was leaving town.
The ride was nice until I entered the main highway again.
From then on I could witness the Turkish version of the now past real estate boom, with largely empty cookie cutter houses lining the highway in all its concrete ugliness. My goal was to reach Bergama and I had to hurry to make it before sunset.
When I reached Bergama I decided to have a look around the ruins in the dawn light. I had a scary moment coming around a turn, when I saw line strung across the road. A kid’s kite had blown over the fence of the Pergamum site and he was tying to retrieve it, blissfully unaware that his kite line almost decapitated me. Luckily I wasn’t going very fast and left only skid marks on the road.
I settled into the nice Boeblingen Pensiyon in a quiet part of town.
