We arrived in Eceabat, a tiny little coastal town filled with monuments and dedications to the New Zealand, Australian and Turkish soldiers in WWI.  We drove out to Anzac cove which had a tiny museum consisting mainly of photographs, letters, weapons and shrapnel.  It was all sort of humbling and sad … right about till we got to the part where it was like “Unknown Soliders Foot, still in shoe” and “Skull with bullet lodged in it”.

There were hills and hills of graveyards, they said that this was the only place where Christians, Muslims and Jews are all buried in the same place.  We walked the trenches that were a shocking 5 – 8 metres apart from each other, whilst our tour guide told us that they would fight during the day, then at night they’d have dinner together and then carry on the next morning.  It was a weirdly peaceful place and I’m glad we made the trip out there.

We spent that night drinking with the locals at our hostel and were introduced to Turkeys finest alcohol, Raki.  It’s a sorta aniseedy-type thingy which I thought was delicious although highly potent.  They bought out the best honey rock-melon I’ve ever eaten in my life, along with samples of the local feta cheese and olives.  I think all the melon sort of counter-acted the alcohol because I woke up feeling fantastic.  I don’t think Marcelo was in the same boat, however.

People had told us over and over not to go to Troy because there is nothing at all left there.  We went anyways.  I saw a few pillars and a construction of how they pictured the Trojan Horse to look like and figured that was it.  What I didn’t expect, is that just around the corner, layers of ruins and pathways through Troy, still were sort of there.  It wasn’t impressive by any means, apart from the fact it was Troy.  Troy had been built and rebuilt about 8 or 9 times, number 6 being around the time of Helen and Paris.  Apparently, all the treasures they found here are sitting in a museum in Germany somewhere.

Later that day, we headed to the ruins of Pergamon, another ancient Greek and Roman city.  Our tour guide was this grumpy old man who insisted on marching us round with barely time for photos whilst he told us stories as quickly as he could.  I guess being a tour guide for the same site 5 times a day for a few years pretty much sucks.  It was a beautiful place though, still with much of its marble intact, unlike a lot of other ruins which were almost destroyed for use of other buildings.  There was a huge amputheatre and stunning white marble pillars which slowly lead into lower ground caverns where they kept animals and gladiators for entertainment.

We left this tour and continued on our way to Selçuk.

Photos:  At the top, Anzac Cove, to the right, Pergamon, below, Temple of Athena in Troy.

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