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Sunday, November 3rd - Istanbul to Iznik - 13,485 km
We are up at 6:30 am to catch the 7:15 ferry from Karakoy to Izmit. Coen is groggy but moving. I have left everything packed but my cycling clothes for a quick and quiet exit. I showered last night before bed and will wait until tonight to shower again. Breakfast consists of energy bars and fruit, at least until we get on the ferry.
We made the attendant at the hostel aware that we would be leaving before 7 so we had access to our bikes in the storage room. In fact, I had already loaded on everything but one pannier with my bathroom sundries and handlebar bag with my camera and other immediate necessities. The bike is greased and ready to go. It is an easy beginning with only two and a half kilometres to the ferry dock in Karakoy. It is still half light, with a cloudy November chill in the air, but there isn’t any serious traffic to speak of yet. We buy our tickets and board the ferry, locking our bike together at one end of the car deck. For the next hour and a half we relax an let the boat transport us. This is more than a commuter ferry. It is taking us to the city of Izmit at the east end of the Sea of Marmara, well beyond the outskirts of the great city. We are able to buy a breakfast of packaged sandwiches and porridge in the cafeteria. I watch the city from the deck as we leave the Bosphorus. The light is amazing but the wind is chilly so I retreat inside and stay there until we arrive in Izmit.
Izmit, our entry point to Asia, was once the most important regional capital of the eastern Roman Empire. It was Constantine’s seat of government until he refashioned Byzantine to make it Constantinople. But very few traces of its ancient glory
remain. It sits right on the North Anatolia fault line and has endured several severe quakes in its history. It is now a town of about 300,000. It has a nice setting otherwise, on the sea and surrounded by hills, but its design hasn’t made the most of it. The ferry drops us 
off just before the city and we need to cycle around the end of the lake and through parts of the old city to get beyond it. Nothing we see draws in to explore further. 
An hour after we land, we arrive in Golcuk, a small blue-collar town south-west of Izmit. There is nothing much to see here either, but we stop for a rest and a stretch and we pick up some fresh fruit and juice for the climb we are about to begin. 
There is a spiny ridge of hills between Izmit and Iznik, today’s destination, and there is no direct way over them between the two cities. From Golcuk, there is a road that follows a V-shaped river valley south-west for 20 kilometres. It then splits. We take the fork that heads south over the top of the hills. We have climbed 550 m from Golcuk to the fork in the road, and then further to a height of 800 m before we drop down through the villages of Sariagil and Yurukler to Iznik Lake. 
My muscles are out of shape. I haven’t done any serious cycling in three weeks, since western Bulgaria. I know I am going to feel it tomorrow. Fortunately, today we are only covering 94 km and we only have this one big hill. It is a BIG one though. The Dutch boys are handling it well too. They stay with me the whole way. I was afraid Coen might be a bit weak but he is managing all right. Vincent likes to lead, but he has a nasty habit of blowing his nose violently. If I am traveling within 20 metres, which I often am, I tend to catch his spray on my face and glasses. He has pissed me off a couple times this way. Other than that, they are great to cycle with. 
I have been hoping all day that Iznik would be something of a marvel, my first romantic Asian city – since Izmit was such a disappointment. It is a bit more interesting than Izmit because its three kilometres of its ancient 10 m high walls are still standing for the most part around the edges of the town, which hasn’t grown far beyond them. It can’t have much more than a few thousand people – much smaller than Izmit. 
The ancient town was called various names, the most famous being Nicaea. It had its heyday in the 3rd and 4th centuries AD and became famous for the First and Second Councils of Nicaea (325 and 787AD) which decided many of the principles of the early Roman Catholic Church. There are several small, reasonable hotels here. We take the second one we check out, one that has a safe place for our bikes. We share one larger room and split the costs. The restaurants here are not designed for European tourists, thankfully. The food is simple Turkish fare with a few Italian and Greek alternatives. The one we choose has falafels and shwarma sandwiches which taste great. After dinner we walk down to the lake as the light is fading.
PHOTO 1: Istanbul sunrise
PHOTO 2: Izmit, a bit of a disappointment
PHOTO 3: remnant of a Roman aqueduct in Izmit
PHOTO 4: industrial town of Golcuk
PHOTO 5: climbing the hills south of Golcuk
PHOTO 6: near the crest of the ridge
PHOTO 7: by the village of Sinapli
PHOTO 8: gate into Iznik
PHOTO 9: part of Iznik's Roman walls
PHOTO 10: Vincent's bike
PHOTO 11: lake shore in Iznik before dusk
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