We’re all a little subdued after minimal sleep on board the boat. We have a three and a half hour drive to Antalya on the southern Mediterranean coast of Turkey. We are moving from the area known as Lycia to Pamphylia. The name is from a race of people who were happier to go along with the invading shinanigans of Alexander the Great and ended up sharing much of the wealth and prosperity he brought to the area. Unlike the proud Lysian guys who, if you remember, killed their women and children and then fought themselves to extinction rather than be ruled over. Nowadays Antalya is a large city of around 2 million people, this number increasing by about 500,000 a year due to a massive influx of tourists. They are attracted by the picturesque bay ... read more

Today we are travelling through the mountains to the Mediterranean to an area that was home for the Lycian people around 1400BC onwards. Originally from Crete the Lycians brought a different language and a unique political system. They would send a delegate from each region to be the representative at the capital. Washington copied this democratic system in America. The Lycians also proved themselves the most troublesome for Alexander the Great to conquer. They were so passionate about not being ruled over that when defeat was finally imminent they rounded up the women and children into a church and set fire to it killing all those inside. The men fought on to their deaths. No-one would rule over the Lycians. They preferred extinction. The Lycia area is a bump of land on the south west corner ... read more

This evening a few of us take a short trip from Selcuk to see a pretty little village up in the mountains called Sirince. The houses are very old and are of Greek style. For centuries the village was populated by Greek people whose families had been there for generations. In 1921-22 Greece and Turkey began a conflict that meant the two nationalities instead of living peacefully together began to hate each other. To resolve the situation the governments of the two countries came to an agreement in 1923 to exchange residents based on their religions so Greek Christians had to leave their homes in Sirince (and many other parts of Turkey) and go to Greece and the Turks moved into their homes. Because there were more Turks than Greeks many houses remained empty. Today Sirince ... read more

Hot on the heels of our visit to Troy, today we are off to see another ancient city, this time Ephesus. This city was named after one of two things; either 'Efersia’ - Amazon Queen - named after the legendary wacko Amazonian women who cut off their left breasts to make it easier to use their bows and who are said to have founded the city OR after the symbol of the city, 'apis’ - honey bee. I know which I prefer, take your pick. There are also two reasons to explain why Ephesus is situated where it is. There's the highly implausible: access to the sea for trading and between mountains as it's easier to defend OR the much more likely: Ionian Prince Androclos was given a sign by the Delphi oracle who said to ... read more

Today we are on the move, leaving Istanbul behind. The open road for me is a time for reflection and resolution. We are due to visit the Anzac landings at Gallipoli, a place of war and the tragic deaths of hundreds of thousands of young men caught up in battles not of their making. I'd mentioned to our tour leader that I'd prefer not to go on the tour here and could I be dropped off somewhere to wait until the group finished looking around Gallipoli. I really didn't want to spend part of my holiday going to a place that represents how crap human beings are, showing how little they've learnt from history and how a few men in power make decisions that destroy so many young men's lives and those of their families. As ... read more