In which Sid and Doris see more small towns that are typical of Turkish life.
It is tempting to open with ‘We’re on the road to nowhere’ as Saray is an agricultural aggregator with few claims to fame. However, the intrepid duo will find the best bits between Kirklareli and Saray and in the town itself. Today’s ride was 77 kilometres with 604 meters of ascent. (These figures cannot capture the perceived effort, head wear or actual watts generated. Today felt OK, yesterday felt hard. The upper spine is still a mystery.)
Yesterday we rejected a dual carriageway and today we embraced one, though quiet and soon to peter out into a two lane road with mixed surfaces (velvet, then vile big aggregate and Sid’s hated tar soup). Our company today has been mainly commercial with the trucks carrying cement, grain and melons. Grain on a very, very large scale and melons merely uncountable (by us).
We have seen quite a lot of military real estate and police, we get waves and toots from the Gendarmerie and Traffic Polis as they pull over drivers to check they have the licences for their buses, taxis and trucks. We also got to see another of the pretend police cars with their LED red and blue lights kept flashing with solar panels.
The villages have been ideally spaced with Pinarhisar (to which we did not flog yesterday) and Vize providentially providing passable pedallers’ provender. In Pinarhisar we found a borek specialist. He sells filo pastry wrapped cheese, mince and spinach. He does not sell tea, but his friend does so we may sit at his shady table. PIC.
Do cyclists bore on about food? In Vize Doris mandated a modern cafe, with a nice loo and indoors – which Sid found. One of the young lads serving was pleased to exercise his English and meet his first natives. He has a selfie with S&D Enterprises Ltd.
Miftah Bat was pleased to see an office that deals with bottoms. Probably Sid and Doris would also be pleased to have their bottoms dealt with. Not long now.
We had no hotel booked in Saray but made for the Elit Hotel which is very welcoming (especially as we have not landed them with paying commission to Booking.com). Our room (best in the house) has a wet-room shower feature. The feature is that the water runs away from the drain and hides behind the loo so that you can wash your feet while standing at the the basin at any time of day or night. This would not happen in Japan.
Saray looks like this, sort of nothingy. A hay stack has just been trailered past. There is a tractor shop in town.
We were also pleased to see this motorbike truck, in something like Candy Apple Metal Flake.
For the car folk in the audience: The Turkish car park is heavily influenced by Renault 9s, 11s, 12s and now Meganes as well as Clios made in Bursa. There are also a lot of old Fiats (locally known as Tofas), such as Mirafioris, Strada, Regattas and Tipos. Now Tofas makes cars for Fiat, Peugeot and Opel – now owned by Peugeot. Ford makes Transits and Tourneo vans at Kocaeli. So Turkey, with cheap energy, quality plants and a depreciating currency is very competitive. CF Bulgaria, nul points.
Our pace on the road has been better than yesterday despite the runny tar and later return of Edwin the Headwind. We are in early and defuse our heads, which have been rattled by the truck noise and their whooshing windy wortices with a quiet walk in the cemetery. We are on the road to nowhere, but we should enjoy the road and be nice to people along the way. (Sid, probably work to do here.)
The town does have a monument, and we found it. It commemorates Ataturk’s Thracian Manoevres of the Turkish Army in 1937 intended to show the world they should not mess with Johnny Turk. Or perhaps Mustapha, anyway, not mess. Turkey remained neutral (until joining the Allies in February 1945) having had enough war and slaughter from 1911 to 1922. There is no monument to the 1934 Thrace pogroms but we might find one later, perhaps in Greece but probably not.
We finish with a couple of random pics – a pylon that is NOT (for once) suffering from camera distortion but is actually that shape, and a rather self-contradictory solar-powered wind turbine.
Walking home towards Blog Central from our tour of the town we saw this new model from Bianchi (zoom in to the logo on the downtube) with the new mild steel Postman’s Stand. A change from those skinny racing machines and a brave move into a new market.