Day 30
Troy
Wednesday, September 18, 2024
Merhaba,
After our day at Gallipoli we took a ferry across the Dardanelles and spent the evening in the lovely city of Çanakkale. This is a cool little city, about the same size as Hamilton. It has a lively little waterfront where we wandered looking for a bar to enjoy a beer before dinner.
Grandma and Debbie haven't seen each other for over a month now. Of course, they had a lot to talk about. While Koro tried valiantly to steer them in the right direction, stop them from getting run over, and reassure them that, yes, we will find a bar and, no, it won't be too long a walk. Koro was getting somewhat henpecked and thirstier by the second.
At one point the girls said, "Look, those men have drinks, shall we try this place?".
Sure enough, there were several tables where men were enjoying a drink and a game of cards.
"Hmm", thought Koro to himself, "I wonder how long it will take them to notice?".
As we wandered through the place there were tables with four men to a table. Some had drinks, but most were drinking apple tea. They all seemed to be playing cards. And the only females in the room were Grandma and Debbie. And they were getting some grumpy looks as if to say, "Why are these women in our sanctuary to which we retreat when we wish to escape our nagging wives?".
It was about then that Grandma and Debbie realised they were the only women in the room. We walked right through the place and out via the side door. We had a bit of a laugh, and walked next door to a bar where a delightfully polite young man served us drinks.
The next morning we had some free time, so we wandered around the harbourside old town area of Çanakkale. Grandma and Debbie found a clothes shop. Koro found a very cute little café and enjoyed Turkish coffee while watching huge concrete trucks negotiate the very narrow streets.
At midday we met our guide from Crowded House Tours and started today's tour to the ruins of the ancient city of Troy.
One again our guide had an exceptional depth of knowledge. She had a degree in archaeology from the local university in Çanakkale and really did know her subject matter inside out.
Standing at the top of the ruins, we could look across the plains where the Greek army would have camped while they laid siege to the city. Further around were the gates to the city that would have been in use during the time of Paris and Helen, Priam and Agamemnon, Hector and Achilles.
Throughout history, the city was rebuilt nine times before it was finally abandoned. You can see as you walk around all the different building technologies that were used through time. Large blocks of precisely carved stone through to hand-made clay bricks.
As the city at the gateway to the Dardanelles, it would have been a very wealthy city from the taxes it would have been able to charge on ships passing through. According to our guide, once sailors had discovered the ability to sail upwind Troy's ability to leverage taxes would have been curtailed, and hence the city’s influence waned.
Troy is a large area and we are very glad we had a guide. She helped us make sense of the particular pile of rubble we were looking at and brought it to life.
The surprising thing about the Troy Archaeological Site is that there is no café or even a gift shop. There are toilets, but that is about it. So if you do visit Troy, make sure you have a good breakfast and take plenty of water with you.
As always, Grandma found a horse to pat. But even more exciting, we saw squirrels! The first squirrel we saw caused a tremendous amount of excitement. We soon realised that squirrels live all over the site of Troy as we started seeing them everywhere.
Grandma was very taken by the squirrels. Buzzy Bee did not think much of them.
After visiting Troy we were bussed back to Çanakkale. We re-crossed the Dardanelles on the ferry, and were then herded onto our mini-bus for the ride back to our hotel in Istanbul.
The mini-bus ride back was an experience. Turkey seems to have a really good motorway system. The roads are smooth and fast. Even so, our driver must have been on promise because he was not messing about. He had his foot down and clearly thought that he was every bit as good as Ayhancan Güven. We were definitely in the fastest mini-bus in the world that evening.
As we got closer to Istanbul the traffic got heavier, and we all made sure we were wearing seatbelts!
We arrived safe and sound however, and trooped into our hotel rooms ready for a very big sleep.
Love to you all from Grandma & Koro & Buzzy Bee.