![]() ![]() From there we climbed up and over a mountain range to reach the broad agricultural valley of Yenisehir, and headed west, towards the 14th-century Ottoman capital of Bursa. Sparing our horses Istanbul's sprawl, we hit Evliya's trail at the small village of Hersek, two days' ride north of the walled, lakeside town of Iznik, where the early church fathers famously gathered for the first Council of Nicaea in AD325. Unesco's decision to proclaim Evliya Man of the Year on the 400th anniversary of his birth, in 2011, will publicise his remarkable life and work – of which little except the sections on Istanbul are at present available in English. Our journey paid homage to a little-known individual who wrote a compendious 10-volume account of his wanderings. I had not ridden for 40 years, but revelled in my newfound freedom every stride of the way. We drank tea in isolated villages and negotiated milling cities. We wound through woodland and across open plains, and walked beside cultivated fields and among laden fruit trees where local people greeted us and shared their harvest. We rode along riverbeds and up and down mountains. ![]() In Turkey, unlike in Europe, there are few walls and fences. We followed Roman roads and goat tracks, Ottoman roads and forest paths. For 40 days we traversed spectacular landscapes and saw remnants of past cultures. ![]() The Way will be the first long-distance route for riders in Turkey, and one of the handful that exist for walkers, and it takes in some of the most dramatic scenery in the country. We aimed to establish the Evliya Çelebi Way, an equestrian and walking route (cyclists also welcome) that snakes through the ancient provinces of Bithynia and Phrygia, and also the region where the Ottoman empire was born. Here we left his itinerary to loop back east to his ancestral home, the historic city of Kütahya, covering some 1,000km in six weeks. We rode first south, then west, following in Evliya's tracks from the Sea of Marmara to the town of Simav, northeast of Izmir. Ours was the first attempt to follow one of Evliya's trails travelling as he would himself have travelled. Last September, I was one of six riders who embarked on an idyllic horseback expedition to retrace the early stages of his epic journey, through northwest Anatolia. Evliya set out for Mecca with 15 horses, three companions and eight servants. ![]()
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