The gorge of the Filyos Çayı and Safranbolu – climbing continues!

This morning, by the time we rode back down from Ihlamur Teras to Yenice, it was already past 11 o’clock. To my surprise, breakfast didn’t start until 9—we were too early—and by the time we finished eating, got ready, and finally left, quite a bit of time had passed.

The highlight of today’s route was Safranbolu, a very touristy town with a historic center made up of wooden houses. It has even been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. But to get there, we first had to ride through a spectacular gorge—what a pleasant surprise. I had been looking forward to the Iron Gate on the Serbian-Romanian border, but this came completely unexpectedly and was just as impressive. Like at the Iron Gate, there were many tunnels here as well, but these were illuminated. Landscape-wise, the region reminded me of southern France, somewhat like the second part of the Route des Grandes Alpes. It was quite cold—the forecast even predicted a chance of snow in Safranbolu—but that didn’t happen. As in previous days, we felt a few raindrops now and then, but it never really rained, and it certainly didn’t snow.

After about three hours, we reached the UNESCO World Heritage town. However, to get there, we had to climb about 300 meters. That number felt familiar—hadn’t we done something similar yesterday? I told Shaun I hoped the climb would be worth it, and it absolutely was. A charming little town awaited us, and we enjoyed a late lunch at a restaurant overlooking the historic buildings.

Our destination for the day was Araç, as Google Maps suggested there were several hotels there, hopefully sparing us another adventure like yesterday. From Safranbolu, it was almost exactly 60 km. After lunch and a bit of sightseeing, it was already past 4 p.m., so we had to get going to avoid arriving too late.

Fortunately, we found a very good road with little traffic, and we even had a tailwind for quite some time. So we made good progress heading east, even though it was gradually uphill. Eventually, the wind shifted, and the remaining kilometers started to feel longer.

Shortly after sunset but still in daylight, we arrived in Araç and wondered which hotel might be the cheapest. Some locals suggested a hotel we had already spotted on the map, so we went there first. It turned out to be closed. Fortunately, a man passing by quickly understood our situation and wanted to help. He made several phone calls for us, seemingly without success. Then he offered to take us to another hotel nearby, so we followed him. But once there, we found there was no room for us—why exactly, I didn’t quite understand. Since some other accommodations were actually student dormitories (like yesterday), only one option remained. The helpful man seemed to put in quite some effort for us, making more calls and discussing things at length.

If I understood correctly, this accommodation normally doesn’t accept guests for just one night. But since we had no other options, they kindly made an exception. It wasn’t a private hotel but some kind of state-run accommodation—I’m not exactly sure how it works. We rode back about 2 km, first downhill and then uphill, reaching the highest point of the day. By then, it was already dark, and the whole process had taken more than an hour. It reminded me why I prefer booking accommodation in advance, as I had done until Istanbul. After a long day of cycling, spending over an hour in the cold searching for a place to stay, with no guarantee of success, is quite exhausting compared to simply going to a booked hotel and checking in. And this only worked thanks to the kindness of that helpful man.

If we manage to start earlier in the mornings in the future, we’ll have more buffer time—which we really needed both today and yesterday. Hopefully, we can improve that going forward.