Çanakkale and Troy

After a long overnight bus trip we made it in to Çanakkale at about 6:30am. We got dropped off at the ferry terminal, not the bus depot, so after a bit of confusion we found the hostel, checked in, then went looking for breakfast. We found a hotel that had just emptied out for a tour and walked in and asked about breakfast. We got ushered out down an alley and into another cafe place where there was the leftovers of breakfast, and we put together sandwiches for 5TL each, and it was really good. We got back to the hostel and crashed for a nap. We were up about 10:30 and decided to get going and see some of the sights. We grabbed a second breakfast then moved down the waterfront to the Trojan Horse. This was the one from the 2004 movie Troy, which they display in the town.

We walked down to the minubus depot which is about 7 or 8 blocks away and physically under a bridge. We had to wait for about half an hour for the dolmus, but were then off to the ancient city of Troy. There have been 10 cities of Troy (Troy I to Troy X) from 3000BC until 750AD, all of them on the same hill. Unfortunately with the schedule of dolmuses, we had 45 minutes to push through the site. We had heard that there wasn’t much to see, but after taking that into account, were fairly impressed with what was there. Thinking there would just be rubble and such, there were actually a few walls and signs that had fairly good descriptions.

 

 

After hopping on the dolmus and getting back to town, we wandered through some of the town and I found a street where they were doing water and sewer main replacement. This is more for those at work but they were digging up the street and replacing both water and sewer. However the street was about one car wide and the equipment operators were superb in making the backhoe and loader work in such tight confines.

 

We wandered through the naval museum which had a few really cool relics from World War I (where the Ottoman Turkish Empire was allies with the Triple Alliance). They had pieces from a sunk German U-Boat and a whole bunch of torpedoes, cannons, and mines.

We booked our bus to Istanbul and our tour of Gallippoli, grabbed another donair, then went to a pub and played backgammon while having a beer. Now, we’re back at the hostel having a drink on the upper floor while watching the move Gallippoli in preparation for tomorrow.