Round the coast to Pergamon (ancient greek ruins)

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.

Here’s a pic from the bay area between Altınoluk and Ayvalık.

Ayvalık

This used to be Greek, and was a center for olive oil production, apparently stretching back thousands of years! I’ve pictured one of the olive oil processing factories.

As you can see, it’s full of rustic charm.

Apart from that, there’s a fishing industry and some ferrying tourists to the various islands. Lesbos is around 5km! Just a stones throw!

Hotel

Was nice and the guy upgraded my room for free. It has a nice view over the harbour.

Here’s some pics.

Dinner

Was much better, had whitebait which is the local delicacy. It was pretty nice. Crunchy and well cooked. Slightly spicy.

After that, had a little walk around town. Although there were a number of bars, none of them were open.

Called it quits and had an early night.

Change of plans

I was going to continue cycling down the Aegean coast, but these main roads are giving me asthma. Whether this is the dust or the traffic pollution…. Probably a combination of both. There’s no shortage of traffic.

It’s not what I came away for.

Fitness

Before I venture into the badlands and backroads, I wanted to lift my fitness levels a little bit.

All the crap weather in the UK meant I had done a lot of sitting around in the period leading up to the holiday.

At the moment, 1 week in, I’m thinking, all things considered, I’ll start to be heading away from the main roads, even if it does mean much harder days. I’d like to be a little fitter, but I’m sure I’ll manage.The cleaner air will help also.

My current journey is toward.

Pergamon

This is the ancient Greek capital of the Mysia region. It’s featured in the new testament book of revelation as one of the seven churches of Asia.

It’s located inland. In some fairly flat terrain, according to Google maps.

I cycled there today and the wind was shocking.

Initially, for the first half, the wind was behind me, literally blowing me along. As the road turned inland, it blew into my face, and stayed like that for about 2 hours.

I really hate the wind.

I had checked the forecast, and was aware that it was going to be an issue. It was a journey of about 50km, which is short for me, usually only a morning. It took from 11am until nearly 4pm.

The hotel is nice. Got a view of the ruins. Don’t know if you can make them out.

Quiz time

Finally, we’re going to do a special little quiz to finish things off.

So, here we go.

If you can tell me what these are, I’ll give you a special prize!

Answers in comments plz!