We knew that doing this northern drive around from Greece into Turkey was a bit risky from a weather perspective. But we dodged a bit of a bullet the last couple of days as both Istanbul and Athens got walloped by a blast of winter and we managed to somehow avoid that!
Have a look at these photos from both cities...
This is not totally abnormal for Istanbul. It gets a dusting of snow on a regular basis in the winter, and usually at least one good storm per season. But this one was a good one, dumping up to 25 cms (10") on parts of the city. A bit odd for Athens, but even it usually gets one cold snap per year. I noticed that the party island of Mykonos also got dumped on, and that only happens about once every twenty years!
Of course we had been hoping to avoid any of that, and to a certain extend we did. We haven't had any snow on the roads, although it's been abnormally cold and windy. For example, the city of Izmir averages a high of 12C and a low of 6C in January. Today, the forecast high is 6C with a low of -2C. The all time record low for the entire month of January is -8C. So it is definitely colder than normal.
In the meantime, we carried on further south.
Scenery along the way.
This highway follows the coast for quite a while.
This town had a nice canal running through it.
Back on the main highway.
Turkish roads are in overall good condition.
More scenery.
They have lot of these fake police cars set up.
Katja and Yves decided to go up to the Pergamon ruins, but I chickened out. It was just too cold and windy for me! We can see it another time. We stopped just outside Bergama for lunch, while they went to the ruins.
I filled up our other LPG tank yesterday as well. We are going through lots of propane trying to stay warm when we are parked up. Got a real deal though... found a station advertising it for 8.24 lira ($0.77 CAD) per liter. $2.30 USD per gallon. Don't really mind staying warm at that price!
Castle on a hill in the distance.
More scenery.
Found a nice overnight spot, and Katja and Yves showed up there as well. We had happy hour together again, but it will be the last time for a while. Today, they are headed to see friends the other side of Izmir, while we will continue south. We need to go at least another 300 kms (185 miles) to get to the warmer weather. Even then, it's not really that much warmer. But at least it will be above freezing over night! This cold snap is forecast to break by this weekend when temperatures should get back up to a more normal 14C (58F) during the day.
Max, parked at GPS 38.830916, 26.973337
It was really windy overnight, and it's still howling out there. Fortunately, Max handles well in the wind. And also fortunately, it should be mostly a tail wind for our drive today.
Yesterday's drive, 161kms (100 miles).
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Decent price drop on Apple Airpods Pro.
And in Canada...
Is it my imagination or did you travel the same route from Monday's drive lol. The map posted looks the same.
ReplyDeleteIt must be your imagination because they are two totally different maps. You can zoom in and out on the map by using the + and - buttons on the map itself. When you do that you will see how different they are.
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