Today Mark crossed the Bosphorus (the stretch of water separating European Turkey from Turkey in Asia) and embarked on leg 2 of his amazing journey. If you thought my knowledge of the geography of eastern Europe was a bit hazy, then it is about to get very foggy as Mark heads through Turkey and into the Middle East! However, I am viewing the next few weeks as a learning journey and hopefully we can learn together.
In the last couple of days Mark has been 'resting up' in Istanbul - if you can rest in a city of 15 million inhabitants.
The web diary on the Artemis site is carrying a very good leg 1 resume from Mark with some interesting observations on the countries of eastern Europe through which he was cycling last week... along with a few thoughts about the weeks to come.He was probably much too busy cycling today to give much thought to plate boundaries but when looking at his route , I noticed that he passed through Izmit which was devastated by a huge earthquake in August 1999. A good image of the 'quake is available from the USGS website here.
This part of Turkey lies on the North Anatolian fault. The faultline marks the boundary between the Eurasian plate and the Arabian plate and is one of the most active faultlines in the world. Mark will be following it for much of his route through Turkey
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