Edirne

From Hitchwiki
Revision as of 21:37, 30 March 2010 by Lanigiro (talk | contribs)

Earth > Asia > Western Asia > Turkey > Edirne
Jump to navigation Jump to search

<map lat='41.68060473460121' lng='26.491470336914062' zoom='10' view='0' float='right' width='400' height='350'/> Edirne is a border town in the north-west of Turkey.

Close to Edirne you'll find border checkpoints towards Bulgaria (20km) and Greece (7km).

Hitching Out

North: Border checkpoint Capitan Andrevo towards Bulgaria

This border checkpoint in the north of Edirne is the most-used spot for cross-border trade between the EU and Turkey, Syria and Iran and tourists going to Turkey by car.

Expect a high rate of traffic there. If you arrive here with a truck, it should be no problem to walk by foot over the border! At the end of both sides you can try to hitch a truck towards Istanbul or Svilengrad, it's very easy!

When you cross the border by car expect to be checked 6 times, which costs you a lot of time especially in summer season. Waiting time between 2-8 hours can be seen as normal at this border checkpoint.

For more information, check out this German Wikipedia article about the checkpoint.

West: Border checkpoint towards Greece

This checkpoint –Pazarkule- is in a walking distance from downtown Edirne. Walk to the direction of Karaağaç (pronounced kaa-raa-aa-aach, signs aren’t very common, so you may have to ask someone. Don’t walk to Pazarkule direction shown by signs out of city centre, they actually directs vehicles to a longer road around the city, but you may thumb on them). After a walk for about 25-30 minutes, you’ll pass two long and historical bridges very near each other (spanning over Tundza (tr: Tunca) and Maritsa (tr: Meriç) respectively) and then soon you’ll see a sign showing the direction to Batı Trakya (Western Thrace) and Selanik (Thessaloniki). At that spot, you are about 4 km away from the checkpoint and you may either keep walking or start thumbing. It’s not clear whether you can walk or have to be inside a vehicle when crossing the actual border though (they don’t allow pedestrians to cross the border at checkpoint Ipsala, another border crossing between Turkey and Greece some hundred kilometres down the river).

South towards Istanbul

It's no problem to walk onto the highway and try hitchhiking along the hard shoulder. Just take care of drivers overtaking cars on the right instead of the left side.


WikiPedia:Edirne