Gallipoli

Monday April 11th 2011

Georgie and I caught the coach at Eminonu at 6.30am to travel 5 hours to Eceabat which is on the Western side of the Dardenelles, on the Gallipoli Peninsula. It was rainy, but scenery was beautiful once we left the city. There are many little areas of apartments just popping up everywhere along the way. So many houses and people!!

We arrived at Eceabat and were met by TJ who runs the tour company we were travellin with. he is Turkish, born and raised in the area so is very knowledgeable about Gallipoli and the whole area. He is married to an Australian from Corowa. They have a Turkish rest. there. She is in Aus running it at the moment.

Our Gallipoli guide- Kenan Celik OAM

We had lunch at his guest house and then set off on our tour of Gallipoli. We were honoured to have as our guide, Mr Kenan Celik OAM who is Turkish resident and expert on Gallipoli. He has lectured in Asutrslia and around the world on the subject and has taken people such as Bob Hawke, Quentin Bryce(last year when she was in Gallipoli) and many other famous people. He is a lovely man, very gentle and gave us a completely unbiased view of the whole campaign. he began with the whole history of why it all happened before we visited the sights.

Beach (Hell Spit) Cemetry

John Simpson Kirkpatrick

 Words cannot explain how one feels when visiting Gallipoli- One can only begin to imagine what it must have been like. It was freezing an drizzly the day we were there so, those poor soldiers on those bitter days.

View across Anzac Cove to the
beach where they landed

Schrapnel Valley Cemetry

                                                     The whole site is beautifully cared for and they were preparing forANZAC Day so there was lots of mowing, gardening, erecting grandstands, etc.

Anzac Cove

All I thought about was the futility of the whole exercise and the extraordinarily rugged terrain the soldiers and horses were expected to cross and survive in- unbelieveable!!

Standing where they landed- freezing

Setting up for ANZAC Day

Reading this makes you weep. Ataturk certainly was the saviour of Turkey- and they honour him so much today- and I really think rightly so.

Moving- the Mehmet carrying the Johnny
back to the allied trenches

Lone Pine

Trenches

The Nek- where the last battle was
fought- the trenches were only about
50 metres apart- if that.

Monument to Ataturk

The visit to Gallipoli was truly wonderful- there were many different Aussies from all walks of life. Some were looking for the graves of relatives- one girl on our tour found the grave she was looking for in Scrapnel Valley- the name says it all doesn't it? I am pleased I went before ANZAC Day as I think it is so crowded, but this time gave one time to think and look without the huge crowds. It was an emotional day but absolutely worthwhile. Just a shame we can't learn from it and have world peace.

Istanbul and the Bosphorus cruise- 10 April 2011

Georgie arrived in Istanbul on Saturday. Her flight was diverted from Sabiha Gocken airport, where I was waiting,due to massive thunderstorms, to Ataturk airport- 2 hours on the other side of town. With very limited phone contact, finally I got there, and luckily she was waiting. We got home at midnight- welcome to Turkey!! quite a stressful few hours- thunderstorms and rain, no contact- a lot of mental telepathy happening!.

Driving throught the narrow streets
you can literally reach out and touch the shops

 On Sunday we went on a sightseeing bus tour around the main part of the city, the old walled section, as well as along the Golden Horn. It was freezing in the partially open topped bus and at one stage began to hail- luckily the sides rolled down on the top deck! otherwise it would have been very breezy!

Part of the vast stretch of wall

 There is still much of the wall built by Theodosius II in 413!!! surrounding the old part of the city.

Church of Saint Stephen of the Bulgars
made completely of cast iron,, in Vienna in
1871 and shipped to Istanbul to be erected.
It was needed for the Bulgarian community.
It is still used by them today.

Part of the ancient wall

One of the amazing 2500 mosques that
dot the city skyline 

The modern day entrance through the ancient
city walls

After completing our wizz round Istanbul we then boarded ferry to take a cruise up the Bosphorus. There are day trips to the Black Sea and you can have lunch in a quaint little village, but we opted for the 2 hour criuse only as the day was cold and not condusive to sitting  eating fish in a little restaurant.

The cruise gave us a wonderful view of some of the beautiful buildings built along the Bosphorus by the Ottomans. We were also able to see the size of some of the vast container ships that sail to and from from the Black Sea countries.

Dolmabache Palace- built 1856
 by Ottoman Sultan

Sailing under the First Bosphorus Bridge-
connects East and West

Not sure what, but liked the look of it!

Looks a wee bit French to me!

Closer of Dolmabache Palace

Wouldn't be bad for a Summer house,
they like to leave the heat of the city then.

Daytime view from hotel terrace

Night time view from hotel

Blue mosque at night- very dodgey photo!!

Aya Sophia at night - also very dodgey photo

After our cruise on the Bosphorus, we stayed the night in a small hotel in Sultanahmet ( on the European side) because we were meeting our coach to take us to Gallipoli at 6.30 am on Monday. We had dinner in a lovely restaurant called Mozaic in Sultanahmet before walking back to our hotel. From the roof top terrace there was a wonderful view of part of the city and Bosphorus.

Got up early, caught the tram down the hill and set off on our 5 day trip down the Aegean. Next instalment not too far away.