The first leg of The World Challenge Cape to Cape: three weeks from Kraków to the Aegean coast of Türkiye, through six countries and over some 6,200 kilometres. We crossed the Carpathians into Romania, drove the Transfagarasan, took the back roads through Bulgaria and spent two rest days in Istanbul. From there the route followed the Black Sea east, turned inland over the mountains of Anatolia and ran via the Euphrates, Nemrut Dağı and Cappadocia to a finish near Bodrum.
We gathered in Kraków on 19 June and left the next morning over the Limanowa hill climb into Slovakia. After a night in Košice we crossed Hungary into Romania, where a fine stretch of gravel led us to Baia Mare. Small roads through Transylvania took us past Cluj to Sibiu, and the next day the Transfagarasan climbed straight through Romania’s highest mountains before we dropped down to Bucharest.
From Bucharest we headed south into Bulgaria, left the main road for quiet villages and took a good stretch of gravel through the hills to Sliven. The border near Edirne brought us into Türkiye, and that evening we reached the Bosphorus. Two rest days at the CVK Park Bosphorus gave time for an early visit to the Hagia Sophia, a yacht on the Bosphorus, the Grand Bazaar and the Basilica Cistern, with dinners at Ali Ocakbaşı and Yeni Lokanta.
East of Istanbul the mountains began at Düzce, with forty kilometres of gravel past the Hasanlar reservoir and on to the Black Sea at Zonguldak. The Valla Canyon and Kastamonu followed, then the coast road to Altınordu, where a rest day took in a tea plantation. We turned inland into the high country around Erzincan, crossed the Keban reservoir, followed the Euphrates through the Dark Canyon and along the Stone Road, cut into the rock face, and climbed Nemrut Dağı to the stone heads of King Antiochos.
Two nights at the Museum Hotel in Uçhisar gave us a sunrise balloon flight over Cappadocia and a day among the rock churches and valleys. The last stages ran through the Ihlara Valley to Konya, past the rose and lavender fields of Isparta to the white terraces of Pamukkale, and via the ancient city of Aphrodisias down twenty hairpins to the sea. At Six Senses Kaplankaya near Bodrum we closed this first route with a final dinner.