Gallipoli

After an EARLY pickup we headed out of Istanbul with anther kiwi couple and a "minder", a delightful girl who looked after us for the trip down.  The trip took us past a holiday home area for the Istanbulians, which our minder commented that they were built close together with no view and the sea along the coast is polluted so why bother. Once out in the country the land is generally cropped with some woodland areas. There were no signs of livestock. After a couple of potty stops we reached Eceabat for lunch. This is on the east coast directly opposite the ANZAC landing point and we joined our guide for the visit to the battlefields and Troy.

A short drive took us to the Gallipoli campaign museum which is an impessive modern facility with 2 floors below ground level filled with mementos, photos and explanatory panels. Obviously the focus is on the Turkish defence, but in general the depiction is evenhanded.  We moved on to the landing beaches, first the intended landing point on Brighto Beach which is a long beach with easy access to the inland area but exposed to the local defensive gun battery, then to Anzac Cove, the actual pre-dawn landing site for the Australians. The cove is a short curved beach backed by a steep slope. At the time of landing there were only 160 Turkish troops in the area who quickly ran out of ammunition. We carried on to North Beach where the New Zealanders landed in the afternoon. There is now a commenorative site consisting of a wall and grassed area above the beach which is used for thr Anzac day service.  The hills above the beaches are generally covered in scrub and low trees.  At one point we stopped at a point known as "The Neck", a narrow point of the ridge leading to Chunuk Bair where a combination of bad timing and bad decissions lead to the death of hundreds in a matter of minutes.  It is said that the Turkish machine gunners were calling for the Anzac troops to go back because there was no way for them to advance against their fire.

We moved on up the hill to stop at small cemetaries and the Australian an Turkish memorials before reaching the New Zealand memorial on Chunuk Bair. It is nice that the NZ memorial stands above the others with a statue of Mustafa (Ataturk) alongside.

We then retreated to the ferry across the Dardanelles to Canakkale to our hotel.  In the morning we headed to Troy which turned out to be a lot more than we expected.  Obviously there is a large wooden horse at the entrance for tourist photos, but once the excavations are reached the picture is much more interesting.  Our guide had more of a passion for ancient history and the explanations were more detailed than for the Gallipoli battlefields. He was able to demonstrate the 10 distinct layers of building from the bronze age through to 600AD.  Owing to its position at the southern end of the Dardanelles strait it was an important marine port.  Whether the stories in the Illiad are accurate is doubtful, but much of the evidence fits.

Anyway, on to Israel.