Kirklareli to Saray

We breakfasted in the hotel, with meusli supplied by the tour company, and all left on a group ride out of town at 7.30. There were lots of waves from friendly locals as we rode by. At the outskirts of town there was a big military base with soldiers everywhere. John had a puncture after only 3ks on his back wheel which had had two flats on Wednesday, our last riding day. So he changed both new tyre and tube,which seemed to do the job. It was a short riding day, so lunch was at10.30 after 45ks. We stopped after 30ks for a cold drink of limonata,a local drink which tasted a bit like a cold lemsip! The scenery was really lovely, at first through grasslands with the occasional shepherd or goatherd out watching his flock, then lots of sunflowers and wheat fields. The terrain was rolling hills, so was a pleasant variety of ups and downs to cycle on. It was 27 degrees at 10am.
After lunch we cycled on through a few towns. When we go through we certainly attrach attention - it is school holidays so there are children out and about and lots of men sitting around. We stopped at Chakala where we had a cold drink. The market was on so we wandered

through, creating a lot of interest, especially from the children. We bought a bag of sweets and gave them a lolly scramble. They all said "hello" and "what's your name" without really knowing what it meant! Many of the women were dressed in black from headscarf to toe. We certainly stood out as being different, but people were friendly, many saying "welcome to our country" The locals then gave us fresh honey melon and chocolates. John had a young lady say hello to him, then introduce him to her mother and grandmother. Liz was waiting on her to propose! However that was probably the only English she knew.

We cycled with Manom, Graeme and Nicole. Then it was only 10ks till our overnight stop in Saray, where we arrived at 12.30. We are getting closer now to our destination, with the signs for Istanbul counting down every 10ks or so from 170 to 120 today. Our hotel, the Sezen Otel, is very nice and clean. We are in one of the refurbished rooms. It has wireless but no air conditioning.

As the afternoon progressed it got warmer and warmer. We spent a while watching the Tour de France, trying to find somewhere to stay cool. Dinner was at 7pm in the carpark, nicely cooked steak, chickpeas and tabouleh. Then a large group of us wandered down to the nearby park to eat baklavah and drink chai. It was a lovely, warm, still evening. We were back at the hotel by our usual nine o'clock bedtime. Our room is on the third floor, there are no lifts. It is very noisy outside with trucks going past on the highway, dogs barking, people talking. The mosque is nearby so we will hear the early morning call. As it is so warm we have our windows wide open and have sprayed ourselves with insect repellant.

None of the windows anywhere in hotels in Europe that we have stayed at have had any type of safety device/lock/barrier to stop them from being opened and people from falling out, no matter what floor you are on. We constantly see things that would never be permitted under our Health and safety regulations.
It is now 9.30 and starting to get dark. Tomorrow we have a hilly 90ks of riding and a bush camp, before we reach Istanbul.
Today we covered 76ks in 3 hours 47 mins. Average was 19.9km. It hardly felt like a day's worth of riding!