Automotive

- Part 1:   www.watchprosite.com

- Part 2:   www.watchprosite.com

- Part 3:  www.watchprosite.com

- Part 4:  www.watchprosite.com

Finally I found the time for the final installment of the Turkish road trip series - the longish drive from Erzurum - one of the Turkish skiing resorts in the East, all the way to one of the cradles of the country - Bursa. As it was a day with over 1250km to cover, detours were fewer than on the previous days. 

Soon enough we transitioned from the cloudless skies into a morning fog, and the temperature…

…not high to start off with dropped even further - to -25 Centigrade - which is quite fresh for daytime. Not unusual in this part of Turkey but somewhat surprising, still. 

The fog lifted relatively soon and the vistas were just as lovely as during the previous days. The roads made for a great combination between f good average speeds, with enough interesting curvy sections included to make it fun, rather than just a chore to be gotten over with. And the light traffic and sufficiently frequent straights ensured one never got stuck behind slower traffic for long. 

While no mountain passes were encountered enroute that day, the central plateau is high enough, so there was still plenty of snow all around. 

And like on the trip overall, you had frequent and quite dramatic changes to the landscape to ensure that the passenger had something to enjoy, as well as the driver. 

In spite of the missing mountain passes, there were canyon like curvy sections peppered in throughout to ensure the tires got up to a decent running temperature 😁🏁

And the speed limits continued sometimes being somewhat out of the ordinary - like the 82kmh on the sign below 🤷🏻‍♂️

Fortunately the really slow ones were not avidly policed 😉

After leaving the central plateau, the snow was gone and it looked like reaching Bursa in time for dinner was more than feasible, in spite of one of the longer daily distances planned. 

The environment also changed to one more commonly associated with the Turkish Western coast…

We finally reached Bursa at dusk and decided to take a walk to dinner, to stretch our legs after the long drive. 

This time it seems I took pictures of at least some dishes 😉

Again we did not have the time or energy for a full scale sightseeing (definitely something for the next visit) but the city definitely has a real variety to offer. 

So, that’s the Turkish part of the road trip over, with two further days to return to the North of Germany ( including a 1000 mile final day stretch). 

If road trips are your thing I cannot recommend Turkey highly enough. In order to avoid traffic to and from Turkey it’s best to take the off season. Winter was fascinating and is definitely doable but the cold temperatures might not be to everyone’s liking. And no Derabasi turns on the Bayburt Of Yolu 🤷🏻‍♂️

While a faster way is to fly in and rent a car locally, anything exciting will cost an arm and a leg due to the high import duties on larger displacement / hp cars. So driving in with your own car might be preferable - especially since you have plenty of fun routes to and from Turkey you can explore. 

The country might not have an unanimously positive reputation abroad but all the people I’ve encountered were unbelievably hospitable and nice. Whether it was finding ways to overcome the language barrier, or mobilizing passers by to push us out of the snow - everything was done to make us feel welcome. 

And the driving was absolutely fabulous throughout. Unlike what people living in Germany might expect, almost all Turkish drivers (outside of Istanbul, that is) tend to be relaxed and accommodating. It seems that the aggressive driving style exhibited by people of Turkish origin in Germany is a sign of cultural assimilation, rather than a trait of the culture 😉 So you absolutely don’t need to be worried in that front. 

Given the large size of the country and the distance involved to getting there it’s hardly a weekend getaway kind of road trip, more of a 10-14 day occasion. At least the high quality roads and the low levels of traffic will allow for good progress and decent distances covered, even if you do frequently detour for sightseeing. 

Hope you enjoyed the series and let’s see which one comes next 😉👍🏻

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