Daisy hadn’t much enjoyed doing the driving in those first couple of days; driving in and out of Izmir is not much fun and was traffic heavy almost all the time.
But when we set off from Izmir in the direction of Pergamon, we hit open road quite quickly…
…so Daisy took the opportunity to hit that road quickly – 90 to 100 kmph…
…until the speed cops flagged us down, about 5 minutes outside Izmir.
Although Janie was doing the driving, I thought best that I act as spokesperson for our team.
The police officer pointed at the speed sign, which read “70 km”. He tried to say “seventy kilometres an hour” in English.
Ah, I said, kilometres…not miles…
“Ingiliz”, said the officer to his mates, as if to confirm his theory. “Kilometres” he said to me, pointedly.
I thought we might get away with it, but he then promptly wrote out the above ticket and pointed to where I needed to go to settle the bill.
140,000.
That’s harsh. 140,000 just for speeding.
Then it dawned on me that there were 82,000 Turkish Lira to the £.
The fine was £1.70
I might have paid £1.70 for the beautiful certificate we were given as a souvenir.
So on to Pergamon, which was a stunning site.
After the stunning sights of Pergamon, we drove on to Çanakkale, keen to get there before dark.
We just about made it, although once we got to the town, we struggled to find one of the recommended hotels open. But we did find one that looked just fine; the Grand Anzac.
I recall we also managed to find a good meal in that charming coastal town.