TNBT: Legendary Troy.

On the West of Bursa, Çanakkale is the largest city of the north Aegean coast. It is a good base for visiting the memorials and battlefields of Gallipoli. For us, it was our starting point to visit the legendary Troy.

We arrived at Çanakkale at about 7 am. There was slight drizzling which set the mood for the rest of the day. In darkness, we dragged our luggage on the cobbled road for two long streets, from the bus station to the heart of Çanakkale. Our hotel was situated in the near the dock areas.

Due to the change in bus timing, we did not reach our hotel the night before as planned. So our hotel rooms at ANZAC Hotel was not available. Luckily, the kind gentleman on night duty brought us to another hotel, Kervansaray Hotel - a boutique hotel.

The hotel was actually an old Ottoman house built in 1903 to house the Chief Justice of Çanakkale. They gave us a suite. We agreed as it was still cheaper than two twin rooms, and we just needed a room to washup and charge our batteries before continuing our journey.

The Sultan suite was surprisingly nice with high ceilings, red carpet and bed sheets. But we were too tired to appreciate it.

Besides, carrying of the luggage up three levels of staircases was the second toughest during the trip - you'll read about the worst in Istanbul later. :p

We had a long and hearty breakfast before heading out to a small bridge opposite the fairground on Atatürk Caddesi, where the dolmuş to Troy were stationed.

But I guess before we set off, we also needed to recharge our mood. Somehow the cover of the cereal dispenser ended up into my bowl without me knowing. That gave everyone, especially Stitchy-Sop, a good laugh! :p

Along the way to the dolmuş station...

We had some hot cay and dessert before hoping on the dolmuş labeled "Truva" (Turkish for Troy). 发发 had the chance to converse with the country lady in Turkish again.

On the dolmuş to Troy, the landscape transformed from small town to rural villages. We were quite excited to see houses with sheep in their backyard. But it was difficult to get some good pictures while the dolmuş whizzing through the roads. No photos of sheep, but we were still pretty excited. We have heard the stories of Trojan wars, read about one of the most advanced city in the past with nine layers of civilizations built on top of each other across different ages, learned about how the term Trojan Horse was adopted for malware in computer, and seen Brad Pitt slaughtered the enemies on the beach, as Achilles, in the movie Troy. This would also be the first authentic archaeological site we were going to see in Turkey. Our hopes were high!

The replica of the Trojan Horse greeted us at the gates of Troy. It was constructed in 1974 by Architect Kadir İzzet Senemoğlu.

And from the other side...

We took turns taking pictures with it.

And also climbed up the Trojan Horse...

I wonder what they were pointing...

Perhaps they were pointing at the Horse-Shaped tiles on the ground?

The tail of the horse was made up of many wooden sticks.

As usual, we were fascinated by the little furry animals roaming around, especially the smiling ones.

Model of the Troy in a little house near the Trojan Horse.

Some of what was left of the ruin...

A well built during 300BCE and restored in 1994.

A curious looking beetle that caught my attention...

Unfortunately, it turned out that the Trojan Horse was the highlight of the visit. What was left of the Trojan excavation fell below the expectations of our untrained eyes. It was difficult to immense in the legend of the city when what was left was nothing more than fallen columns and foundation of houses. We could hardly tell where once stood the most advanced architecture of mankind. Of course the slight drizzle made it more gloomy.

However, history revealed that the German businessman, Heinrich Schliemann, who had excavated the site in 1870s, had found a hoard of jewels believed to be of the Trojan War's King Priam or earlier. He smuggled the jewels out of Turkey. Otherwise, the world will be able to enjoy more when they visit the Troy today.

We could hardly see the beachhead where thousand ships landed, and Achilles and his Myrmidons fought the Trojans. The walk around the Trojan ruins was left much to our imagination. It would be better if we had a guide to bring us through the ruin. A suggestion for those who only have a day visit in Çanakkale: There is probably more to see if you take the ferry to visit the Gallipoli.

As we made our sleepy journey back to the town, XTT-KC and I looked for somewhere to visit. In the end, we braved the rain and reached the city's fortress, Çimenlik Fortress, at around 4.30pm. It was built in the 15th century under the aegis of Mehmet the Conqueror. It was then converted into a military museum. The Askeri Ve Deniz Müzesi (Army and Navy Museum) closes at 5pm everyday. So we could hardly appreciate the impressive structure in the hurry and in the rain.

At the entrance of the fortress museum, 发发 accidentally gave the guard the Troy ticket. The guard gave him a puzzled look, smiled, and let him in. Oh we could have all saved on the entry tickets, especially with only 30mins left to visit!!! :p

The canons were housed in the fortress grounds, while within the fortress building were exhibitions on the Gallipoli Campaign, a joint British Empire and French operation against the Turks in the First World War.

Gallipoli Campaign laid grounds for the modern Turkish Republic under Atatürk, the commander of Gallipoli. Each battle and phase of the campaign were described in Turkish and English on wall charts. There were also quotes and stories, with one recounting the story of how Atatürk received a direct hit to the heart, but was saved by a pocket watch. Variety of personal belongings of the soldiers, such as buttons, uniforms, medals, expanded rounds, drinking cans, helmets, muskets, etc., were on display.

We didn't have time to visit the Naval Museum, but we board the replica of the Nusrat, a minelayer that gets the credit for saving the day against invading British warships during the sea offensive.

Exhibits inside the ship...

From the museum, we could see the Gallipoli peninsula across the Dardanelles (which also separates Asia and Europe), where the campaign was fought.

It started to get dark and the rain had stopped.

It was time for dinner!

Being in the port city, we wanted to eat some seafood. We took a walk along the pier, a romantic place in the evening to have a warm proper meal. Finally, we decided to settle on a restaurant, while some men at the pier were still fishing for their dinner.

The waiter at Damak Tadi could not speak English. After struggling through the guidebooks to make sense of the menu, we managed to order some fish and pilaf (Turkish for rice). We missed eating rice!!!

After dinner, we went back to the hotel for our second consecutive day of long wait before the bus ride. While 发发 slept "angrily" away, the rest of us had fun playing the silly word game of starting phrases with the last word of the previous phrase aka 文字接龙. :p The crappy phrases were mostly about taking bus to our next destination, Selçuk. Eg. "我们搭bus去Selçuk" and follow by..."出去走走很冷要穿Long John" Ha ha ha. Its okay if you don't understand what I mean. :p

While waiting for the bus, a gentleman from the Truva bus company chatted with us. He told us about the teachings of Atatürk (welcoming friends to Turkey) and his passion of working in the tourism industry. Another typical friendly Turk. =) Unfortunately, we were really tired and hard trouble keeping up with the conversation. He politely left and assured us that our bus would be coming soon. Up on to the bus, it was another overnight ride to our next destination.