Çanakkale - Gün 7

Iris in [reconstruction of] the Troy horse
The tour of Troy began at 7:45 am. Our tour guide was amazing. He had published a tourist-y book or two on the site, and his English was perfect.


A view of the Dardanelles from Troy
Behind the Trojan War. When the Greek Goddess Eris wasn't invited to some happening on Mt. Olympos, she became angry. To punish them, she placed a golden apple saying "To the most beautiful." Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite all thought they deserved it. Zeus sent them to a Trojan prince named Paris to choose who received the award. So, each of the goddesses tried to bribe him. Hera offered him the chance to be the most powerful man, Athena said he would be the most clever, and Aphrodite would give him the most beautiful woman. Paris chose Aphrodite, and kidnapped the Greek queen Helen. This is the mythological explanation behind the Trojan War. There could have been a kidnapping, but the real reason was most likely that the Greeks had grown tired of the Trojans having complete control of the Dardanelles.

Our tour guide said that when he asked boys under 14 years old, they would choose to be the most clever. Boys until the age of 19 would choose the most powerful, and after that age, they'd choose the most beautiful woman. Ah, tour guide humor.


Mud bricks which were solidified by a fire.


Ruins with labels showing the 9 Troys
Troy was actually established nine times. The third one was constructed during the time of Priam, and the Trojan War.

The tour showed only about 10% of Troy. Much of the remaining unexcavated area is Roman ruins, and Turkey has so many Roman ruins, they may not even excavate these parts.

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A view from the Gallipoli Museum
We headed back to Çanakkale to meet up with our group headed to the Gallipoli Penninsula. Our group was really only one other person, an Australian backpacker.

Gallipoli Background. During WWI the British were aiming to control the Dardanelles, which they had to take from the Ottoman Empire. It was the first time they were using troops from Australia and New Zealand (Anzac troops). The Anzac troops landed a mile North of where they were supposed to, and had to climb up steep cliffs instead of sloping hills which is what they expected.

Mustafa Kemal [Atatürk] was in command of some troops at that time. He immediately sent his reserves (against orders) to meet the invading Anzac Troops, and to guard Chunuk Bair. If the troops captured Chunuk Bair, the highest point of the peninsula, they would easily gain control and the Ottomans would most likely lose.

Due to Mustafa Kemal's actions, the Anzacs were unsuccessful. Although both sides lost about 250,000 soldiers each, the battles in the trenches eventually ended in a ceasefire. The Anzacs retreated and removed all their troops in 2 days without any fatalities.

There didn't seem to be much animosity between the two sides- the sides would sing songs to each other at nighttime; during the ceasefire, a Turkish soldier delivered a wounded British officer to the other side, etc.


A cemetary


Lone Pine Cemetary
There were so many cemetaries. There's apparently 31 monuments in the Gallipoli Peninsula/Park area, and we only saw a sprinkling of them.


Ottoman 57 Cemetary


Up the tower at the Ottoman 57 Cemetary


The view from Chunuk Bair, the highest point


Iris in some reconstructed trenches
At some point in time, the enemy trenches were only 8 meters away from each other. They could hear their enemies moving around and talking. There was so many bullets in the air, that the museum actually collects bullets that hit each other in mid-air.


Mom at Chunuk Bair


Atop Chunuk Bair, Atatürk was shot, but his pocket watch saved his life. He gave the watch to his commanding officer (as a sign of respect) and the commanding officer gave him his working watch.

After the rather depressing tour, we dropped Mom off at the Eceabat bus station, for her 4:30pm bus to İstanbul.

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I ended up waiting a half an hour in the nice Maydos Restaurant where we had lunch. I was sitting at a table by myself, while my tour guide and all his buddies (the driver, waiters, etc.) sat at a table at the other end of the restaurant. Nice and awkward.

Another tour group arrived, and we got on the restaurant's private boat to cross the Dardanelles back over to Çanakkale. It had a beautiful view.


A boat on the Dardanelles


Another reconstruction of the Troy Horse, this one on the Dardanelles shore in Çanakkale. It's made of fiberglass, and from the (recent) movie Troy. Look familiar?


Boats tied up in Çanakkale


Sunset over Çanakkale


Sunset over boats in the Dardanelles

So, I was set free in Çanakkale until 8:30pm, when I would catch my 11 hour bus (yippee) back to Ankara.

I wandered around a bit, took some sunset photos and photos of the Trojan movie horse, I spent an hour in an internet cafe, and then headed to dinner.

I chose a sort of nice-looking place, but it was empty. I asked the waiter, "Is the restaurant always this empty?" He didn't understand me, and got another waiter who said, "I speak English." I said my question wasn't that important, but I asked it again anyways. The new waiter responded, "Can I help you pick out something to eat?" So, he more or less didn't understand me either. I was on a roll. I was so much on a roll that the power went out, and the waiter brought me over a candle and said, "Is this romantic enough for you?" I was only very minorly freaked out, as there was a table in the corner with some Turkish men, so I wasn't completely alone. I was glad to finish eating and leave.

I spent the rest of my time at the Anzac Hostel, watching Troy, the movie, and some documentary on Anzac Day.

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It was a great trip.

Otobüs - Gün 6

A small cruise ship, seen from our hotel room balcony


The view of Kuşadası from the other direction

We spent our morning waiting until 10:30am, when we could catch a bus to İzmir (2 hrs). So, we wandered around Kuşadası's Grand Bazaar as the only tourists in town. We made some okay bargains, being the first customers of the morning. I bought my sixth scarf and mom bought some evil eye earrings.

We got to İzmir okay, and found our next bus to Çanakkale. It was a 6 hour drive up the coast, but it was during daylight so we could see the scenery we were passing through. A large part of the journey took us through huge olive tree orchards.

Çanakkale is a small city-ish town. It has a few nice places to eat and it's fairly active with the locals walking about. It's fairly asleep during the off-season, but in the summers (and especially around ANZAC Day) it's packed with Australians.

We stayed at Anzac Hotel, which was an okay place. Their partner hostel (I suspect), Anzac Hostel, operates the tours. Everyone over there speaks English with an Australian accent, even the Turkish tour guides.

Selçuk - Gün 5

The guy dropped us off at the international terminal, told us to go down the stairs and across over to the domestric terminal. One would have thought it would've been simpler just to drop us off at the domestic terminal in the first place. I think he was just lazy.

But, we flew out of İstanbul at 7:45am and arrived in İzmir around 9am. There was someone there to pick us up, and he drove us to Kuşadası, where we met up with our small tour group to see Efes, Meryemana, Temple of Artemis, a pottery workshop, and a carpet showhouse.

In our group we had a Norwegian girl on her way to Palestine, two Australian guys, and a Belgian couple with a son at İstanbul University. The Belgian man was pretty angry the whole time (about being late, about not spending more time in Efes, etc.). Pretty exciting.


A road through Efes
The first stop was Efes, a Roman city. Normally, during the summer months it's unbearably hot and completely mobbed with tourists. In these photos, there's only a light sprinkling of site-seers, and no one dying of heat exhaustion.

Efes was a harbor town, although the water has receded many kilometers. The town was actually established 5 different times, in 5 different locations. The fifth reincarnation of Efes is modern day Selçuk.


A partially reconstructed monument- marble and cement. Almost like modern art.


The Celsus Library and Hadrian's Temple
The above view is actually on the 20 lira bill (below). The 50 lira bill actually has the image of the Three Beauties of Kapadokya on it.


A 20 lira bill showing Celsus Library and Hadrian's Temple


Celsus Library
To the right of the library, you see a tablet which actually has Hebrew on it. The road that leads from the right of the library had all sorts of inscriptions in different languages.


Looking up at the Celsus Library


The World's first advertisement
I'm not entirely sure I believe the books when they say this is the world's first advertisement. Not only is it an ad, but it's an ad for the brothel across the street from the library. Apparently, the foot means "left". There's a symbol for "corner". The grapes to the upper left mean "pleasure" and there's a woman to be found to the right. So, basically it says, "You will find pleasure and women on the left corner." I'm still not entirely convinced it's not just random grafitti, much of the labelling and identifying of places is guesswork anyways.


A view from Efes


The Efes Theatre
Apparently, modern artists such as Sting and Guns and Roses have actually performed in this theatre, to an audience.

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The Temple of Artemis
Next stop was the Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It's pretty much nothing but rubble now, all its remains hauled off to England and Germany.

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Three Black kittens at the Virgin Mary's House
We visited Virgin Mary's House next. It was set way atop a hill, and they planted all sorts of lovely trees. It is difficult to imagine such a peaceful place thronged with tourists. It seems sort of sacriligious to treat this Catholic/Christian and Muslim holy place as a tourist attraction.


Meryemana/Virgin Mary's House


In case religious experiences make you tense and stressed, feel free to sit down and have a beer (Efes Pilsen). Weird.

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We visited a pottery workshop and a carpet showhouse somewhere in there. Plus, we had our free lunch at a bus stop- and paid 4 lira for a can of soda (the outrage!). The carpet store was actually interesting, because we got to watch the girls knotting the carpets, and we learned a fair amount about the pricing, materials, manufacturing, etc.

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A sunset on Kuşadası
Afterwards, we were dropped off at our hotel in Kuşadası, a pleasant little beach resort town near to Selçuk. For dinner, we ate at some sea side cafe. Our waiter gave us a giant bowl of cole slaw, enough for 6 people. That, and we couldn't understand what he said half the time. He reminded me of a stereotypical Frenchman, except Turkish.

İstanbul - Gün 4

The last day in İstanbul before the big journey South.

We took the light rail to the end, and walked the rest of the way to Dolmabahçe Palace, one of the last built by the Sultans. Sadly, they abandoned the Ottoman palace architecture, leaving behind the courtyards, and adopting the Western palace style. Basically, it was a mess of baroque and rococo, gold and crystal.


Mom and Iris outside of Dolmabahçe palace
Despite the declining of the Ottoman Empire (and the empire's funds) Sultan Abdül Mecit stopped at nothing. All the floors were made of hardwood parquet, carpets were specially ordered for the rooms, ceilings were done with gold leaf, and there was even a crystal staircase. The palace was never looted, like many European palaces, so all the decadent furniture was still in place.

I didn't pay the extra 6 lira for the privilage to take indoor photos, but I don't consider it much loss.

After touring the selamlık, we moved to the harem. It was much less fancy. The typical image of a sultan's harem is a luxurious, wide open courtyard full of the sultan's concubines and wives. What most people fail to realize is that all the sultan's children were living in the harem as well. More or less, the harem was a rather plain place with many small rooms to house the multiple women and chilren that inhabited the area. It really was never that luxurious.


Mom showing off her sweet pink shoe coverings
Before we entered the Crystal Palace we had to wear pink shoe coverings. It was a much smaller place, with a piano made of crystal, with a matching crystal chair. There was a crystal conservatory for watching parades, and it had a crystal fountain with some crystal chandeliers.


Internet, that way
Before heading back to the hotel, we stopped at an internet cafe (not nearly as sketchy as the smoke-filled, male-only internet cafe we had used a couple of nights before). I am so glad I don't have to use a Turkish keyboard while I'm at school.

We had a late lunch, so decided to postpone dinner. Instead, we went back to Omar's shop and bought some more pillowcases. After much noisy fighting and refusals, mom was finally dragged into Omar's carpet shop, where we proceeded to drink apple tea, and look at carpets. She finally settled on a nice, embroidered kilim from the northeast and paid half in YTL and half in USD. Paying in cash gives you a "discount." As we walked back to our hotel, other vendors called asking if we would like to buy another carpet. Mom responded, "I'd have to sell one of my children." The vendor said, "Okay. She is beautiful. I'll take her and sell you a carpet." Nicely done, mom. Nicely done.

Oh, but the fun didn't end there!

We had set our minds on taking a Turkish bath, and so we ended up at the Çemberlitaş Hamamı, designed by Sinan (who constructed the Süleymaniye Mosque). As first-timers we were quite clueless about what to do, but this Hamam was quite touristy, so the staff was used to ushering dingbats like us around.

Nothing says fun like laying on a hot marble slab in a 400 year old bath, sweating all the dirt off your body. Rather, nothing says fun like being in a 400 year old bath naked, next to your naked mother, and 10 other naked strangers, being scrubbed by half naked Turkish women.

It was really relaxing. We were quite ready to go to sleep afterwards, but instead we rested in the reception room, drinking freshly-squeezed pomegranate juice.

Afterwards, we knew we should probably eat something, but mom didn't want to experiment. We ended up at McDonald's.