Turkey

Saturday 6 August 2005

Took a tour of the ruıns of Troy. Fascınatıng as ıs the realıty of the polıtıcal and economıc sıtuatıon at the tıme of the Illıad - legends apart.
Also the story of the dıscovery of the ruıns ın 1878 usıng amazıngly accurate geographıcal dıscrıptıons of the posıtıon of Troy gıven ın the Illıad very ınterestıng.
A long bus trıp 5 hours saw us set up for the nıght ın a small hotel ın Selçuk - good bıg room wıth great hosts. A beer then bed.

Trojan Horse at Troy
Ruins of Troy

Friday 5 August 2005

An amazing day! We were picked up at the Emek Hotel and taken in a good air-conditioned bus to Garibolu for lunch and then THE BATTLEFIELDS. Quite everything we expected. We spent the night in the Yellow Rose Hotel on the 4th floor.

Emek Hotel Lobby

ANZAC BATTLEFIELDS

-- Anzac Cove --

-- Beach Cemetery --

-- Lone Pine Cemetery --

-- Lone Pine Chapel --
-- New Anzac Day Site --
-- Turk's Words to Bereaved Australian Mothers --

Thursday 4 August 2005

Spent the day in Istanbul. Saw the Blue Mosque and had a long trip up the Bosphorus before bed after another great meal-real Turkish food.

PS: (Added on 19 August 2005) * Patsy heard sirens in the middle of the night in Istanbul. We have since found out that a bomb went off at midnight about half a mile away from our hotel that killed two and injured four people. We knew something was going on in the morning by the police presence but as we could not read the newspapers we did not know what had happened until 18 August 2005 when we read an English European newspaper.

Blue Mosque

Bosphorus River Cruise

Wednesday 3 August 2005

The train finally arrived at 1530 only 8 hours late. A friendly guy got us a room 40 ytl and a package to Gallipoli and Troy to drop us off near the ferry to the Greek Island of Samos. Turkey a very friendly place.

Tuesday 2 August 2005

Rebekah drove us to Pipera Metro. We made our way to Gard du Nord and we caught our First Class train at 1410 as expected. That was the last time anything was on time. WITH NO AIR CONDITIONING we sweated and finished our water by 1900. Train was due in at 0745. There were long delays at the Romanian-Bulgaria border during the night.