Nearing the End
Friday 26th May
A short drive this morning to visit Troy, site of the Trojan Horse. We weren't too sure what to expect here but found both an Archealogical Site and a museum. We went to the Archealogical site first and saw a 1975 replica of the horse itself, however it was being refurbished and was screened off. We were quite disappointed, though could still see the size and it is enormous, around 25 feet tall (Nearly 8metres)
Walking the area was both disappointing and surprising. Disappointing because there was little left of Troy besides some walls and foundations. Unlike the other places we had been there was no major buildings or columns still standing. Surprising because it turns out there have been many versions of Troy, each built on top of each other. They are referred to as Troy I, Troy II, Troy III etc up to Troy IX. Troy I dates back to 3000BC which each subsequent version being built on top of the ruins of the previous one. By the time of Troy IX (85 BC) the ground level had increased by around 20 metres.
The museum was 100 metres or so down the road and we visited it next. It was quite large consisting of four floors with items from Troy but also from other cities nearby. It had some incredibly old artifacts, from as far back as 6000BC, but even so, I was done after the second floor and Trace after the third, so we never made it to the fourth. Whilst it was very well done with several holographs and videos as well as static displays I just didn't find it as interesting as the the Archealogical sites we had been to.
6000 BC Axe heads
4000BC Gold headband
Canakkale was only another 30 kms down the road and once we arrived we parked and had a bit of lunch and a wander around. It has a nice waterfront area where there was also a replica of the Trojan Horse. We then joined the ferry queue to cross the Dardanelles Straight to the Gallipoli Peninsula, and our hotel for the next 3 nights in Eceabat.
After settling into our hotel we went out for tea and a walk along the foreshore. There we found a huge 3D map of the Peninsula with all the battlefields and cemeteries marked on it and then next to it a life size diorama of a battlefield, complete with poppies growing between the trenches.
10915 steps today and 185kms
Saturday 27th May
The Gallipoli Peninsula has two main roads, one takes you along the beaches, whilst the other takes you into the hills and past most of the cemetaries and memorials. Today we chose to do the hills, stopping at some of the Turkish cemetaries and most of the ANZAC ones (some were a couple of kms down rough dirt roads) and also walked some of the trenches. The ANZAC and Turk trenches were fairly close together at one point only around 20 metres. They were close enough to be able to hear each other and have actual conversations and they even exchanged food for cigarettes. Crazy!
The cemetaries were smaller than we expected, much smaller than the ones around Ypres in Belgium. There are 31 ANZAC war cemetaries on the Peninsula, containing 22,000 bodies but only 9,000 have been identified, which is quite sad, though even worse is the 14,000 soldiers who were never found. The Turkish cemetaries for the unknown soldiers are done a bit differently, having rocks in random places - to replicate a battlefield. Interestingly all the deceased Turks are referred to as martyrs.
The hills and gullies are very steep and it is quite amazing the ANZAC's were able to make it to the top, especially as they tended to climb at night or under fire.
We visited Lone Pine, The Nek, Baby 700, Johnsons Jolly and Chunik Bair cemetaries as well as several other memorials, spending about 4 hours. We then went into the Gallipoli Museum for around an hour.
The whole area is done very tasetfully and whilst there is a general pro Turkish vibe (to be expected) you can feel the respect for the ANZAC's
Turkish Unknown soldiers
Lone Pine
Australian Trench
13231 steps and 33kms today
Sunday 28th May
Today we drove the beach road and stopped at a few more cemetaries-Beach and Ari Burnu and also at the Anzac Cove Commemorative site. At Beach cemetary we found the grave stone for John Simpson (of Simpson and his donkey fame) as well as a few that died on 25th April, but many more who died in August - when some of the bigger 'skirmishes' occurred. As with yesterday it was quite sobering looking at all the graves and reading the various memorials etc, but also looking at the landscape and imagining how hard it would have been for the ANZAC's. Our photos do not do justice to the size of the hills they were faced with. We spent about three hours walking on the beaches and through the sites.
We had seen some red Turkish gravestones in a museum but googled and could not work out where they were and were suprised/ disappointed that we had not seen them either today or yesterday. Leaving the beaches it was still early, but we had seen some road signs for 'Abide' (Turkish for monument) and decided to head there. We had no idea where or what it was but after around 20kms we could see a large structure ahead. Having parked we walked into the park and were amazed to see the red tombstones! It turned out they were monuments rather than tombstones as they were sorted by city and had up to 18 names on each. The park was very large and had a sculpture, several reliefs on walls and the monument we had seen from afar. The biggest relief was around 30 metres long and Abide is 42 metres high.
Heading home we reached a town called Kilitbahir where there was a Fort and a Castle, so we stopped and had a look inside both. The Fort had been used in 1915 and managed to sink a few French and British warships before it was hit by enemy (Allied) fire and destroyed. This was the Allies efforts to 'soften up' the Turks before the Gallipoli landings.
The Castle dates back to 1420 and has an interesting shape, where the inner walls make a three leaf clover pattern. Both the Fort and the castle were quite interesting though whilst they had signs in English, both had several videos/short movies showing that were Turkish only.
14596 steps and 101kms today
Hi Pete, the architecture over looks amazing.
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