Safranbolu to Amasra
Our next destination on day 26 was Amasra a beautiful seaside town by the Black Sea. A direct drive from Safranbolu to Amasra was only 1.5 hour so we detoured to viist Guzelcehisar Kalesi first before ending our day at Amasra.
On the way
The route to Amasra crossed very beautiful landscape mountains and valleys. The greenery was stunning. We were so captivated by the beautiful scenery and eagerly looked out for a cafe to stop and enjoy the gorgeous landscape. We found a cafe, “Gulistan Cafe” and stopped for our tea break.
Gulistan Cafe was just sited by the side of the road. We went in to buy two cups of tea and took them outside to drink. Gulistan Cafe had an extended open deck that looked out to the valley, the sight was lovely!
Guzelcehisar Kalesi
We drove to Guzelcehisar Kalesi based on Google Map but at our last kilometer to the final destination we hit a “road block”. There was some construction outside a house that blocked out the entire road. The workers told us that we were on the wrong road to Guzelchehisar Kalesi. So we detoured and went by another road indicated by the workers and ended up parking near the beach of the bay.
We parked at an empty place beside a restaurant Denizbilen Cafe and walked down to the Guzelcehisar Bay. The bay looked lovely and there was a long board walk along the entire arch of the bay.
It was a lovely stroll on the boardwalk. The beach, the sea and the sky looked beautiful. The breeze was comforting and the sun was nice and warm.
The boardwalk brought us to the fascinating basalt rock formation. This formation was created 80 million years ago. The cooling and crystallization of the lava flowing from the volcanoes formed these rectangular, pentagonal and hexagonal-shaped columns that were between 50 and 100 centimeters in diameter and 100 meters in height.
Asmara
From Guzelcehisar to Amasra was a 45 minutes drive. Our stay in Asmara was on Boztepe Island and to get there we had to drive our car onto a medival bridge (Kemere Bridge) connecting the island and the mainland.
For a while we were worried that the bridge was meant only for pedestrians as our car was the only one driving on the bridge. But there was no sign of “vehicle restriction” and there was no other road linking to Boztepe island. It seemed that both visitors and vehicles used the same bridge to go to Boztepe island so we had to drive slowly and carefully to avoid the people walking all over the bridge. After the bridge was a small narrow tunnel. If our car was any larger, we would not be able to drive through!
We had two days in Amasra and had a great time exploring the surrounding on foot. We explored the backlanes of Boztepe island, we explored the main island, we walked up the path leading behind the houses of locals, we were looking out for scenic spots.
The beautiful AmasraAmasra looked especially beautiful during sunset hour. It was May and Amasra was still pretty quiet which meant that there were not many visitors but it also meant that not all the cafes and restaurants were opened. Our 2nd day on Amasra which on 14th May 2023, we were surprised as even the supermarkets were closed, those stores/shops that were opened the day before were closed. We found out that it was Turkey National Election day and many businesses did not operate on election day!
Our stay in Amasra
It was not easy to find a “ideal place” to stay in Amasra. We wanted to stay on Boztepe island in a place that had a great view but there was not many “hotels” fitting our requirements. At last, we found an Airbnb apartment which satisfied our criteria. The cost for two nights stay was Eur82.
The apartment came with a gorgeous view of coastal town!
