Michael Tyler

Due to inclement weather and the long distances involved, I was going to take the bus to Kusadasi and had bought a ticket.

What the agent had omitted to tell me was that the time stated on my ticket was not the time of departure from Pumukkale, but the time of departure from Dinizli, the nearest big town!

Obviously, I missed the bus. As I was sitting drinking my Turkish tea outside the hotel, I could see the clouds forming big and dark and asked my host, “is it going to rain?”. “Yes” he said.

I took this as my cue to fire the bike up and get going.

I was going to have to cycle to Denizli and buy a ticket for the later bus. So that’s what I did.

It’s not so far away. Only around 20km. Downhill. Mostly.

Denizli

Was an interesting city, after I got my ticket, I dropped my panniers in storage and had a very short look around.

One of the place I found was this Hamam.

This was the real deal. Proper baths with plunge pool. Main treatment area, also with a steam room and sauna. The cost: One treatment, (scrub and rub), plus unlimited time in the baths 320tl. That’s about £8¿?!

Not. €55. The facilities were better. More for £40 less.

Gave my Hamam in Istanbul a 1 star review.

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The last couple of days, one to get here, one to look around the ruins.

Hotel La’bella

Didn’t think much to the hotel I stayed in on Wednesday. The place was advertised as having WiFi throughout. Turns out there was none, anywhere. This obviously causes problems. After a period of trying to sort it out in my room, then trying the public areas, I returned to reception and asked to speak to the manager.

Suddenly, and mysteriously the WiFi suddenly came on. I did the more serious stuff and went out for dinner. When I came back, it had gone off again and it stayed off until I left in the morning.

3 Mobile phone masts

When I was testing the public area’s WiFi, I went up to the rooftop terrace. There I discovered that the hotel had 3 mobile phone reception masts on the roof!

Maybe you’re aware, churches in the UK use these to make money. Operators pay a lease. If you own a tall building in somewhere they want to be, they will pay you a sum to have their service operating there. Sometimes it can be a lot.

This woman had 3!

That made me think that the place made plenty of money, without any guests. They were just creaming it off basically.

Reception weren’t at all interested in the internet not working when I left. Nothing you can do apart from leave a good honest review, so that’s what I did.

To be fair, I left a really good review for the previous hotel, so they kind of balance each other out.

Getting to Pumukkale

Travel conditions: Ideal for cycling. Overcast, cold (for Turkey), no wind, not too much sun.

Whilst cycling down there, on this side of the Pumukkale hills, I saw some of this.

There was like a local farmer parked close to the front of this one. I was going to ask him what it was all about, but after some consideration, I thought better of it and cycled on… past a number of these devices.

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Pergamon was supposedly where the Greeks discovered medicine.

Legend has it that a friendly snake learned the Greek wise man, Archias some techniques and taught him how to make cleansing anointment for his patients.

Archias got fairly good at this, and was looking at resurrecting the dead, the technique of this was also whispered by a snake. This annoyed Zeus, (the god), and he struck him with a lightning bolt. That was the end of a very promising career. Still, his legend continues here at Pergamon ruins.

It is a world heritage site

The Asclepion at Pergamon was one of the most important sites of medicine in the ancient Western world, it’s where the stave and snake motif derives from.

The healing rooms are quite impressive, obviously not what they used to be. There were no patients hanging around now, but you can see the revenants of grandeur in the scale of their construction.

I guess this place was like an early hospital.

It has other cool things also. It takes something over an hour to wonder around in total.

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I could put the names in the title, but they’re fairly meaningless.

The hotel in the first Aegean town, Altınoluk, had the most phenomenal breakfast.

Here’s a picture.

Apart from that the room and hotel were fairly new. I cycled into the beach front promenade resort type affair, (called Altınoluk), for dinner, which was bland and disappointing. Still, it didn’t cost too much.

Had a really late start the following day, (Sunday), as the next stop over was only 60km away. Not far at all.

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When I was looking at the roads on Google maps, they all looked so level. Nothing spectacular to see on ‘terrain’ view.

The reality was it was 4 hours climbing, 1 and a bit hours down hill at the end.

As some consolation, the wind was behind me on the climbs. By the time I had reached the coast, it had switched direction. Still. You don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

I’m holed up in my hotel now which seems pretty new. It’s not a great big chain, but having been here a couple of hours, it seems pretty functional.

Beaches

There’s quite a lot of beaches here now, all of a sudden as we have hit the Aegean. With the beaches come beach front bars and eateries, many of which have failed and fallen derelict. Others just mothballed for the winter with workers busy bringing back to life.

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Probably the easiest day on my trip so far.

A meagre 30 miles or so.

My muscles will be thanking me for this time off.

Boutique hotel

Didn’t think much. If I’m honest. Breakfast was good. Room was noisy. TV has less working channels than all the other hotels I stayed in, (all 2), still. No English speaking channels when the others did. There were other things which were lacking the attention to detail which is the essence of the ’boutique’ experience.

They tried to charge me for an orange juice. That was with breakfast. Not really happening is it? First hotel ever where they’ve tried to charge me for the juice I’ve had with breakfast.

Got off quite swiftly.

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Very testing. Wind in my face. Lots of hills. Significant hills which were long, steep and on winding roads.

After the first 12 minutes of so getting out of Kumbag, spent the entire morning stood on the pedals.

This really didn’t go away, or at least the wind didn’t. It was joined by a hailstorm later on!

The hills did improve in that the bends went away. When you’ve got bends like that, it’s impossible to sit down and just cycle normally.

In terms of the geography, flora and fauna, things were much more interesting.

Breakfast

Was late at the hotel, service started at 9.

It was a nice breakfast.

Kumbag is the first sea level area for quite a distance, which I guess is why it’s got the port.

The hotel, Novo Port Hotel, tried to fleece me a little on the dinner. When I arrived at 20.00, the idea of eating in and just being able to relax made me ask, ‘how much is dinner?’. To which she said €8, fish and chips. I thought, this is a good deal, but I didn’t really want the chips so much, so she said salad. So I said, ‘ok’.

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