our next hike

Name: our next hike
Start: 2025-01-01T10:30:00+03:00
Location: Bahçeköy, Istanbul, Turkey

Schedule

Wed, 01 Jan, 2025 at 10:30 am

UTC+03:00

Location

Bahçeköy, Istanbul, Turkey | Istanbul, IB

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New Year’s Day, Wednesday, January 1st
our next hike - #368 - a relatively easy route through the part of Belgrade Forest to the west of Bahçeköy
Joining the hikes: You can just show up at the rendezvous; it’s best if you send me your mobile number (there’s no WhatsApp Hiking Istanbul group but I do use WA for quick messages and sending locations if necessary) in case of any last minute changes. Also please send your email address if you’re not already on our mailing list. (Though if you’re not sure of something on the morning of the hike or you’re running late, please don’t mail me as I probably won’t see it in time - in that case, please call or message me.) If the plan changes (perhaps because the weather forecast suddenly changes for the worse), I’ll update Facebook and send out another mail before the day of the hike. If it doesn’t change, I won’t. If in doubt, please message me.
Side: Thracian
Route: Bahçeköy to Bahçeköy via Bahçeköy aqueduct, middle-western Belgrade forest, Kirazlı, Büyük, Valide Sultan and İkinci Mahmut dams and reservoirs, the ruins of St. George's Church, and the Valide Sultan stream
Special notes: I’d like this to be a silent (almost) hike so that it serves as a kind of moving meditation on our relationship with the natural world to start the year; so that we open our senses - especially hearing - to the sounds of the forest - much less in winter than in spring but still there’s plenty to hear
Character: lots of forest; Ottoman dams and reservoirs
Objectives: we last walked this route in January ‘23; it went fine but anyway it’s time for a rewalk
Route difficulty: a little easier than our average
Particular difficulties: we have a few straightforward climbs; they're all optional
Dangers: a low risk of ticks
Distance: around 17 kms
Circularity versus linearity: the route is circular; we start and end in the same place (which makes it especially suitable for pet dogs)
Time: if things go to plan, circa 7 hours walking (including breaks)
Estimated start time from Bahçeköy: 10:30am
Estimated finish time in Bahçeköy: 5:30pm
Return transport: regular buses to Hacıosman
Bailout points: none officially but we’re never far from somewhere
Weather forecast (it can change): 5-12°, sunny, no rain, a light breeze
Exposure: mostly we’re under the trees
Hilliness: lightly hilly
Wetness, muddiness & marshiness: there will be a little muddiness and wetness, not much
Thorniness: very little today
Wild swimming (always optional): not in winter
Clothing: as appropriate for the time of year; hiking boots are more suitable than sports shoes; spare socks are a good idea in case your feet get wet; a rainproof is wise in case of an unexpected shower
ID: checks are very unlikely but best that you bring an ID with you in case (a scan is also okay)
Breakfast tea: we’ll have breakfast tea in Bahçeköy in the café across the square by the main mosque
Drinking water: bring what you need (and greenwise, please re-use your bottles), my advice is half a litre; each of us is different so you have to decide this yourself; there are no refill places on this route
Villages, shops, tea-houses and non-woodland toilets: only at the beginning and end
Lunch: somewhere…
Rendezvous: 9:40am at Hacıosman bus station to catch the 42HM bus leaving the bus station at 9:45am and heading to Bahçeköy. We’ll get off the bus at the last stop. If you see the bus, get on the bus. If you miss the bus, you can catch us up by taking the next bus which is at 10am. In which case you should call or message (not mail) me to let me know. N.B. Everyone needs to organise their food, water and any other needs before we start walking; once we start walking, we won’t wait for stragglers, though you’re welcome to try to catch us up.

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Google Maps location for the bus stop in Hacıosman bus station:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/QUpzM3EjxSJPVEmA7?g_st=com.google.maps.preview.copy
Google Maps location for our café in Bahçeköy:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/TTpvs3rs3TZAM7r7A?g_st=com.google.maps.preview.copy
İETT timetable for bus 42HM:
https://iett.istanbul/RouteDetail?hkod=42HM&routename=bahcekoy-Hacıosman-metro
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general notes
- Hiking Istanbul’s tee-shirts: We have stock of our tee-shirts (check the links for more info). If you tell me before the hike, I can bring with me and then there’s no postage and packing charge. Sizes: S / M / L / XL. Price 400 lira. After covering manufacturing costs, the money goes to support our work.
- Apart from the contribution to the Hiking istanbul guide, you just pay your own way on public transport, and your own food and drink. Contribution to the guide (currently, that’s me, Mohamed or Alp): 250 Lira except for Hiking Istanbul board members; further education students: half price; school students and kids: free. Under 16 year olds should come with an adult who takes responsibility for them, or make an arrangement with me if I know the child and parents so that Tasha and I can take responsibility during the hike.
- Our hikes are in an independent, explorative and adventurous spirit, and we try to be as sensitive to our surroundings - both natural and agricultural - as we can be (the British Countryside Code - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-countryside-code/the-countryside-code - is a useful reference). Because of the nature of the countryside around Istanbul, the hikes are mostly not easy, though few are ‘sporty’. They’re generally less demanding than walking say on the Lycian Way or anywhere in mountains, but they’re generally not as easy as walking on footpaths in the European countryside. We avoid asphalt, wide forest tracks and firebreaks. Mostly we walk on small tracks and paths - and these are sometimes overgrown (though as more people use them, they will become less so). Sometimes we take beelines. And the primary reason why there’s green land around Istanbul at all is because it’s hilly. Few of our hikes are flat.
- We are not professional guides (our focus is on mapping and improving our hikes rather than promising perfect hikes for our hiking companions). If you join us (which is our pleasure), you have to take responsibility for deciding what you can and cannot handle as you go along. Even on hikes we’ve walked before, there are usually new sections we're trying out for the first time and sometimes these work well, and sometimes they don’t…. Sometimes we end up backtracking, and sometimes we find ourselves making our way though a stretch of jungle or over a boggy patch or wading across a stream. Especially where we’re walking new hikes, we don’t know till we get there how the land will be. We navigate from the front and are not able to do much to look after people while we’re walking. If something goes wrong, we will do our best to help. If you have a problem or need a break or whatever, please tell us, please don’t wait for us to ask.
- Season (late spring - summer - early autumn), time and route permitting, we often include short swims on the hikes, so you may wish to bring swimwear and a towel. Swimming of course has to be each individual’s responsibility, both in terms of deciding about water quality and potential dangers (especially if you're not a good swimmer). Swimming in reservoirs is always yasak but we sometimes swim anyway - at each swimmer's own risk...
- If you need the service of a professional guide or if you need fully tried and tested (and trouble-free) routes then our hikes are not for you. Even in dry weather, we often encounter wet patches of ground, sometimes we scramble down and up slopes, sometimes we follow streambeds, rocky coastlines or reservoir edges. In such places especially, there’s a risk of slipping (though you can slip just about anywhere if you don’t walk attentively) and that risk is higher in wet weather. And normally if you do slip (and I certainly do from time to time) then nothing awful is likely to happen to you (though there’s always some level of risk, just like there is crossing the road in Istanbul). In 4 years, touch wood, with more than 100 hikes and many 100s of hikers, there’ve not been accidents and incidents worse than thorn-scratches, occasional bruises, (rarely) pulled muscles & (rarely) tick bites.
- We ask you to be aware of the social context. Hiking gives us a wonderful opportunity to appreciate the countryside (and the city’s margins) in the richness of its sights and sounds, and it's especially nice for most of us when we walk in a spirit of contemplation rather than too much chatter. Please don’t play music while we’re walking unless you’re listening on headphones.
- Litter: It’s one of the sad features of Istanbul’s countryside that we frequently come upon litter (as well as dumped rubble and trash but we can’t do anything about that apart from report it) - much of it left by picnickers, some of it carried by waterways from settlements, some of it windblown, some of it left by dumpers etc. I’d like us to each pick up a (smallish) bag of litter on every hike, so that we start to do something about the disrespect of Istanbul’s countryside by the general public (setting an example rather than waiting for the culture to shift or the authorities to get their act together). Collecting litter during the main part of hikes where there’s nowhere to deposit it properly would be a burden but collecting litter towards the end of each hike or shortly before arriving at any village or picnic spot with wheelie bins should be doable for us I think.
- Health & ability: If you have a health condition (including severe hay fever and other relevant allergies especially if you’re allergic to bee and wasp stings) or disability whichever you think might be a problem for hiking, please discuss with us in advance. We are not health-workers, though we’ll do our best to advice you based on our (limited) knowledge and experience. Nick brings a first-aid kit on our public hikes if he’s guiding. So far, touch wood, no-one has suffered more than a bruise or a pulled muscle while hiking with us, but more serious injuries are of course always possible - as they are crossing the road in Istanbul.
- Tick bites: Lyme Disease is perhaps the biggest (though not to be exaggerated) danger from hiking around Istanbul (in 11 years we know of 1 person who caught Lyme, and he was successfully treated with antibiotics - the disease is bacterial not viral). Infection can follow tick bites (ticks are more common than they once were, as a probable consequence of our increasingly mild winters). If you’re bitten by a tick (in itself just a mild nuisance), you need to check the place of the bite for about 10 days for signs of infection. And if there are such signs, you must see a doctor - Lyme Disease, if untreated early, can become a serious, hard-to-cure, chronic illness. There are more details here: https://www.wikihow.com/Recognize-Lyme-Disease-Symptoms & https://www.lymedisease.org/lyme-disease-symptom-checklist/. Good general sources of info are: https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/index.html & https://lymediseaseuk.com. And here’s how to remove a tick: https://www.wikihow.com/Remove-a-Tick. A removed tick should not be crushed between your fingers as its blood can be infectious. The best thing is to flush it down the toilet or crush it between stones. After every walk in the countryside, you should check for ticks - noting that sometimes they're little bigger than black dots with tiny legs - and remove them as soon as possible (the sooner you remove them, the easier they are to remove, as they don’t bite immediately). Our routine is to check when we get home from a hike and to check again the following evening, as sometimes they can be on clothes or backpacks and take their time to find their way to someone’s skin. In order to risk being infected with Lyme disease (only a minority of ticks carry the disease), a tick will have to have bitten and that means it will probably have been attached to the skin for more than 36-48 hours. This gives a window when it should be easy to safely remove a tick and prevent infection. I don’t think it’s necessary to go to a hospital as, if you have tweezers and use them in the recommended way (check the link above), ticks are usually not difficult to remove until they bite. Once they’ve bitten, they’re harder to remove and the risk of infection is much higher. Ticks can attach themselves just about anywhere on the body but common places are the neck, belly, legs and arms. The good news for us is that there’s no Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever or tick-borne encephalitis in the Istanbul region. Lyme disease is (as far as we know) the only disease you can catch from ticks around Istanbul.
- Disclaimers: Please do read our disclaimers (they’re in Turkish and English). They go into more detail about the possible dangers of hiking around Istanbul. If you didn’t receive the disclaimers already, please let us know and we’ll send.
- Kids & teenagers: In our experience any reasonably physically resilient and psychologically focused kid or teenager can handle our hikes (how young depends very much on the kid but a sporty (say) 7-10 year old can handle 20kms or so if they want to - but they have to really want to). For under 16’s, an adult needs to come too and take responsibility. If you’d like to bring an under 16 year old please let us know in advance. For unaccompanied youths between 16 and 18 years old, please check in with us first, as we may need some kind of parental consent form. Normally, for under 16-year olds (and definitely for under 12s), please choose hikes with bailing points in case the whole hike is too much.
- Dogs: We often have village dogs accompany us our hikes. We neither encourage nor discourage them. They are independent. If they come, it’s usually a pleasure to have them with us and we try to look after them. If you’d like to bring your own dog(s) with you on one of our hikes, they're welcome as long as you take responsibility for them and they don’t harass farm animals. Noting that transport is likely to be problematic (except for our circular hikes if you’re driving) as bus drivers often don’t allow dogs on buses.
- Being green: We leave no rubbish at all on our hikes (organic waste excepted if disposed of discretely), nor do we make fires or barbecues, nor carry weapons, nor make noise. Beyond this, we ask our fellow-hikers to reuse water bottles as much as possible, rather than contributing to the plastic waste we often encounter. And, as much as possible, please use public transport to get to our start points and to return home at the end of the hikes. We wish we could say bicycles as well as public transport, but that remains something of a dream as far as Istanbul is concerned.
- Posting our routes: Please kindly credit Hiking Istanbul if you post any of our routes on Wikiloc or elsewhere.
- Hiking Istanbul’s co-founder and renowned historian, Caroline Finkel, has written an invaluable historical guide to Istanbul’s villages; it’s essential reading for anyone interested in Turkish village life and the history/story of the land around Istanbul; the whole e-book, Hiking Istanbul’s Hinterland, is available free and can be downloaded from: