Bicycle touring the Küre Dağları: Amasra to Safranbolu

This short trip was my only self-supported bicycle tour in Turkey in 2024. I piggy-backed it onto our rainy Bartın Bisiklet Festivali. It was raining when I walked to breakfast my last morning in Amasra, but the rain had stopped before I finished eating. I guess you could say I was lucky with the weather that day. The next rain was mid-afternoon, but it was light and didn’t last.

My last view of Amasra was on the same climb that we had done one of the mornings during the festival. It felt harder with a loaded bicycle. No surprise there, but almost all my touring is with a heavy bicycle, and I tend to forget how much easier it is without carrying stuff.

The second climb was about 400m, and then I descended through İnciğez (with too many nasty dogs)

and immediately started up again.

This climb was harder — an average of 11% over 4.3km on a dirt road — and partway up was when the afternoon rain started. But the sun came out again, and I got my tent set up at the bottom of the next climb before the rain started again.

When the rain let up the next morning, I started packing up. It was start-stop packing because of the start-stop rain, but eventually I started up the climb. After a slow (because of the hill) 3km with non-stop rain, I came to a wonderful large roof below a mosque in the village of Şahin and spent the next ~20 hours there. During the day I was entertained by Zeno (of Zeno’s Conscience; thanks for the recommendation, Ed). He’s quite the character, an amusing way to spend a rainy day.

The next day was my 8th day in a row in Bartın and the first that it didn’t rain during the day. Nice. I went kind of far (for me) that day through Kayacılar, Okçular, Kadı, Ayazlar, Çerde, Yenice, Karahasan, Alpı, the district capital of Ulus, Abdipaşa, Sarınç, Kumluca. Ulus was actually a little out of my way, but I needed fuel for my stove. The riding turned out to be excellent.

Once again I camped just before the start of another climb.

It was foggy in the morning, but I climbed up and out of the clouds which is so fun.

It was a short descent to Şabankadı and Hasankadı, and then I started up what turned out to be the hardest climb of the trip. Back at the city museum in Bartın I was told that Bartın and Kastamonu have more bears than anywhere else in Turkey. Then when I was talking with Sercan and Nisa (from Bartın and Boyabat) during the festival, I showed them my planned route to Safranbolu. Looks great, but you need to be careful with bears, they warned. It’s this time of year, when they’re preparing for winter, that they’re most active.

Sure enough, just passed Doğancılar the road was covered with bear prints, and there was no one around.

The climb was hard at the beginning but eased up in the middle. I stopped in the sun and enjoyed a rest and some lunch. I knew I still had a long ways to go, but looking at the map it seemed like perhaps it wouldn’t be too steep. Well, maybe not, but the map gave no indication of the mud and snow. Some of the puddles were so deep that my feet got wet pedaling. It was not the most pleasant afternoon.

I would have liked to stop earlier, but I didn’t have any drinking water. Anyway there was no place for the tent that wasn’t wet, muddy, and/or snowy. Also if I could lose some elevation, the night wouldn’t be so cold.

At 1400m I found water and a fairly dry spot for the tent. It had been colder than expected spending the night before at 600m. I was pleasantly surprised with how warm it was at 1400m — below freezing but not too much.

In the morning I put on all my clothes including my down coat for the descent into the clouds through Başköy. Fairly uneventfully I arrived that morning in UNESCO-listed Safranbolu.

The reason for UNESCO’s interest in Safranbolu is late-Ottoman history, mostly the preserved mansions, in some ways similar to Gjirokastër.

There are also a couple mosques to visit.

The historic area, rather busy on the Saturday I was there, is centered around Cinci Han, the large building in the center of this photo:

On the hill in the top left of that (above) photo you can see the old courthouse building which now houses a decent museum.

I’m usually not into miniatures, but I enjoyed the collection of clock towers in the adjacent garden.

The best Safranbolu view I found was from Hıdırlık Tepesi.

There were lots of tour buses, probably mostly day trippers. How do you get tourists to stay for a couple nights? Well, nearby we find Tokatlı Kanyon and Bulak Mencilis Mağarası (a cave). I made a day trip by bicycle. Tokatlı Kanyon looks like it might be a nice, short walk connecting two Ottoman bridges.

Alas, they’re pushing a road through the canyon.

Seriously? wtf! For what purpose? It’s only about 2km between those two bridges. Who would possibly give permission for such a project? Ankara, said the çoban who answered my (rhetorical?) question.

The ride to the cave was nice enough,

but the electricity wasn’t working when I arrived. Amazingly the guard still let me in with just the crappy light on my phone.

I had seen lots of mushrooms on my ride through the mountains. Turns out it was mushroom season, getting toward the end, and the busy mushroom market was right near my hotel, Güney Konak. I brought 5kg back to Antalya. Super tasty.

For local fare Meral at Güney Konak recommended Hanımeli Yöresel Restoran (?) where the most unusual thing I tried was their peruhi.

Meral invited me one afternoon to join her husband and colleagues for a bbq — chicken, salad, and lots of yummy grilled mushrooms. Thank you.

What you really shouldn’t miss when you’re in Safranbolu is Yörük Köyü. It rightfully makes it onto lists of Turkey’s most beautiful villages. It’s like a mini Safranbolu (mostly) without the concrete block construction.

As I’ve mentioned before on this blog, there aren’t many restored houses to visit in all of Turkey. Siphahioğlu Konağı in Yörük Köyü is the best one I’ve seen.

You can also visit the historic laundry house (çamaşırhane). It’s not terribly exciting, but the guide made the visit quite interesting. How does a village like this make any money from tourism when everyone just stops for an hour, wanders around, and takes photos?

I left Safranbolu in the morning and was back home 15 hours later.