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Published: January 23rd 2008
December 15 - 17, 2006
Friday
We pulled into Cannakale after dark and with not much of a clue as to where we would be staying for the night. The bus from Selcuk dropped us at Cumhuriyet Meydani, an open square between the ferry docks at the end of the main street of Cumhuriyet Boulevard, a corridor of busy shops, hotels and restaurants with a narrow park running down the center of the avenue. We dropped our bags on the sidewalk and took turns popping in and out of the nearby hotels, ultimately settling on the neat Canak Hotel.
Saturday
Cannakale has become the main jumping off point for tours of Gallipoli battlefields across the strait from the city of 60,000. At Gallipoli the strait narrows creating a bottleneck between Istanbul and the open waters of the Aegean. Strategically the strait at this location, less than a kilometer and a half wide, has long been the key to attacking or defending Istanbul (The Persian King Xerxes crossed in 481 BC, Alexander the Great in around 330 BC). As the Allies developed their strategy for winning the war it was clear that control of the Dardanelles would have
an enormous impact on the ability of the Ottoman Empire to coordinate and participate in Axis efforts.
Much of the beautiful peninsula is a Turkish National Park today and holds tremendous significance for a variety of tourists. New Zealanders and Australians, whose countrymen made up the majority of the Allied fighting force deployed to secure the Dardanelles, descend on Cannakale in the thousands every year on ANZAC Day, April 25th, and all year round to visit the cemeteries, memorials, and monuments. Turks, whose national identity and independence was carved from the crumbling Ottoman state as the war ended also hold the park sacred. Like the ANZAC forces, the Turks suffered tremendous losses on the island. Their revolutionary hero and the founder of the republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, rose to prominence in defense of the peninsula (and Istanbul) against the Allies, essentially becoming a world figure and a legend not unlike General George Washington’s rise to prominence more than 200 years earlier in the US.
None of this held a great deal of interest for Amy who, despite having thoroughly enjoyed the varied historical offerings of Turkey, was a little toured out, so while Roger spent a couple of
days exploring Amy spent a couple of days lounging.
Early on our sunny Saturday morning in Cannakale Roger made his way to the nearby pier to meet the Galipoli tour we had booked through Anzac Hotel. The group consisted of an English-speaking Turkish tour guide, three Turks, an American with his Turkish girlfriend and her mother, an Aussie guy, and Roger. The group boarded a small boat for a chilly ride across the Dardanelles (also known as the Cannakale Strait) to Galipoli. After landing on the far side we were taken into a large restaurant on the water for breakfast before loading into a van for the tour.
After breakfast our tour started near the Cape Helles on the southern end of the peninsula before moving up the shore to the memorial and cemetery of ANZAC Cove (the battlefields were along the western shore of the peninsula). We visited a number of sites, including a terrific museum of artifacts from the fighting, the hilltop called Lonesome Pine (now an ANZAC cemetery), and a cemetery for Turkish soldiers. The Turkish cemetery, beautifully laid out among the pines, was a special place for our tour as the older Turkish woman
happened to discover the grave of her uncle, long known to have perished on the peninsula but her family never having learned where.
Around sunset, we explored the trenches and battle lines of Chunuk Bair. Chunuk Bair represents both the high water mark for the invading forces as well as the spot where Ataturk led his famous defense of the island, cheating death in battle and securing the Dardanelles. We were able to view the whole southern part of the peninsula as well as the monument to Ataturk in the pink light of dusk.
Today Gallipoli is a beautiful park of steep hills, memorials, crumbling trenches and quiet beaches. The bloodshed here from April to December of 1915 was among the worst of the war. In a few short months the Turks suffered casualties and losses near 200,000 men, the Allied forces around 150,000. The strategic failure ranks as one of the worst for Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, and a transcendent moment for the Turkish identity. Even in the throws of war and as the Ottoman Empire crumbled, Turkish Republicans sought to carve a smaller Turkish state from the failing grasp of the Sultan.
Symbolically the victory launched Ataturk into national stardom and, in part, demanded an amount of respect from the Allies that would not be granted to the other Axis powers in Austria, Hungary, and Germany.
The many memorials, both Turkish and those for the Allied nations, are full of touching tributes to the soldiers on both sides. Far from bearing any animosity over the heated violence of the invasion, the Turks appear to exhibit a kinship to those who lost their lives here (and their descendents). The tour, largely because the group was small and consisted of several Turks and a young Australian man, provided a unique insight into World War I and the lives of those touched so powerfully by it in this region.
Sunday
Like the Gallipoli battlefields, Roger’s desire to see the site of ancient Troy was not matched in Amy who had seen enough piles of rubble and plaques telling of ancient tribulations to last her two lifetimes. Amy had read that a lot of visitors were disappointed in their trip to Troy because there isn’t much to see and since Troy was not a place Amy needed to see to say she’d seen
it, she decided to again spend the day relaxing.
At the crack of mid-morning Roger made his way to a local bus nexus under a bridge across the Sari River only to find that his inability to consult the bus schedule left him plenty of time to sit on the curb and contemplate being a better traveler. Most importantly, this avoidable snafu would dictate that Roger’s trip to Troy would be confined to the hour between buses if we were to make our bus to Istanbul. Undaunted he sat on the curb awaiting the bus and considering the relative wisdom of seeing Troy in 45 minutes versus packing it in and saving the city for a future visit to Turkey.
Once the bus arrived it was a quick ride through Cannakale and into the wide plains of the Turkish countryside. At the end of the route the bus wound through the village of Tevfikiye, depositing Roger as the lone tourist near the entry gate to Troy. Roger passed through the outer control point for Troy, the gate positioned approximately a half mile down a straight road from the site and its ticket booth. With barely an hour Roger
ran the half mile, a cruel reminder of how suspect his conditioning had been during our travels.
Near the gate stands a small museum and a large wooden horse fashioned for the recent film Troy, a gift to the site from the film’s producers. The museum provides a minimal amount of information for maximum effect, clearly outlining the history of the settlement and its stages of development. Starting in about 3,000 BC city after city was built here, often directly on top of the previous city’s ruins, until Mehmet the Conqueror arrived around 1462. Following the final conquest of what was Troy in 1462 the city and the site were essentially lost and forgotten until it was rediscovered in the mid-1800s. The museum may provide more but with the clock ticking Roger had to be on his way.
Thankfully the layout of what is left of the city and the design of the walkways allows for a visitor to circle around the ruins seeing virtually everything without having to retrace one’s steps. The layers of the city and the various stages of development are quite evident in numerous places and a remarkable job has been done in presenting
the ruins. From the high edge of the city several kilometers of lowlands reach to the sea which has receded since the high times of Troy and is barely visible today.
Having rounded the ruins thoughtfully drinking in the majesty of one of the world’s most famous historic locations (in 19 minutes) Roger found himself near the end of his tour and overlooking the necropolis and a theater where he played with the timer setting on the camera in an effort to nab a shot of himself at the ancient ruin. Before making his way back to the bus he encountered three people from the previous day’s tour of Gallipoli, all of whom were bound to catch the same bus. Feeling sure he’d slighted the visit to Troy, Roger did, at least, have the opportunity to race around it and he feels confident he saw as much as most people may see in a much longer visit.
The return trip to Cannakale was more social than the ride out, and, despite cutting it close in terms of meeting our bus to Istanbul, Roger followed his fellow tourists to a local bakery before returning to meet Amy at the
hotel (note: always make time for the bakery in Turkey).
We loaded up our things and made our way to the bus stop a block away. There was some confusion as we tried to board the bus and it took us some time to realize that the attendant wanted us to load our bags and then walk across the bus lot and board a ferry by foot. We did as we were told and were relieved to see the bus, with our bags, pull on to the ferry behind us.
The ferry was jammed with cars, pedestrians, and other buses, and presented a very good glimpse of the locals moving about, our favorite fellow passenger being a large surly goat near the boarding ramp. Before making our way to the upper deck of the ferry we stopped to use the bathroom, a rust-covered closet that appeared not to have been cleaned since the Ottoman Sultan visited. On the deck above we sipped sweet Turkish apple tea and chatted with the eager server as the city fell behind us and the Cannakale Strait opened up around the ship. We would board our bus and disembark not far from where
Roger had landed the previous day for his Gallipoli tour.
We watched the sun set as we cruised along the strait and into Istanbul, our last stop in Turkey before heading to London for Christmas.
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Joy
non-member comment
It's Roger's Long Lost Brothers!
Roger: Judging from your "hairy" look in the photos, I'm thinking the guys on the gas station sign might be your long lost furry brothers! Interesting information on Turkey, a country I've never been inclined to visit because I've got so many above it on the "must see" list. Thanks for sharing!