Blogs from Canakkale, Marmara, Turkey, Middle East - page 7

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Middle East » Turkey » Marmara » Canakkale March 3rd 2006

Caught the bus along the Marmara Sea from Istanbul to Canakkale, which took 7 hours to travel 300km! Turkish buses are incredible - far better than any other bus I've been on. For starters, there was leg room!! Then they bring you free cake, juice, tea or coffee. After all of this the attendant comes round with a spray of cologne to freshen up everyone's hands. Was pretty strange! The bus crossed onto the Galipoli peninsula and then went on the ferry across to Canakkale. I reached Canakkale earlier than I thought I would and ended up standing in the middle of the ferry port like the dumb tourist I was with backpack and Lonely Planet out. I ended up staying at the cheesey Anzac House on the main street which is packed with Aussies and ... read more
Eceabat
Brighton Beach
Lone Pine

Middle East » Turkey » Marmara » Canakkale August 30th 2005

I am here for 1 week already. It't time for my first trip outside the city. So we got together: about 50 people - to go to visit TROY..and other places related to Turkish history. The trip from Eskisehir to Canakkale (the starting poing of our 3-days history lesson) is 8 hours. Once there..you can smell the perfume of the sea. We crossed the Dardanelles with a ship. The view was absolutely breathtaking. The water was dark green and the wind was caressing our smiling faces. How can I describe that Dardanelles crossing-over trip?! Great! Absolutely beautiful! And since our trip's purpose was to discover the history of that part of Turkey...soon we started to see a huge Turkish flag on the hill. Soon we reached Gallipoli, the starting point. That place is now a ... read more
Canakkale shore
Fortress
Turkish symbols

Middle East » Turkey » Marmara » Canakkale August 15th 2005

I arrived packed and completely worn out at Istanbuls Otogar (Bus Station) on a hot Sunday afternoon. Grabbed a last minute kebab and got ready to sit on a Kamil Koç for 6 hours (This was the bus firm I might add, although some of you readers are saying not for the first time). Istanbul to Çanakkale is only 280Km's. I can't see how it can takes 6 hours, oh well, plug in my iPod and look out the window for a bit. We made one rest stop about 2 hours in, where the food (as always in Turkey it seems) was cheap and tasty. Much better than our "Service" stations back home. Another hour or so I realise that Arsenal have just started their season against Newcastle United at Highbury, without me, for the first ... read more
Arsenal Here, Arsenal There....
Ataturk Here, Ataturk There....
ANZAC Cove

Middle East » Turkey » Marmara » Canakkale April 14th 2005

Hey kids, Q: What do you get when you cross the Aegean wıth six Canadians, an American tour guide, an Australian pharmacist, and a British soon-to-be doctor? A: The love boat, people. And our last four days. So, if it isn't obvious, we ended up taking a cruise with a whole bunch of people we'd met in Cappadocia and Istanbul, and seriously? Such a good decision. We spent four days just lying on the sun deck, drinking Turkish beer, occasionally jumping off to swim, eating amazing food (there was a chef on board), and making no hard decisions. One night we docked at some random island in the middle of nowhere, and there was this completely fabulous disco stuck right on the shore, and we all tarted ourselves up and went dancing. Granted, we were the ... read more

Middle East » Turkey » Marmara » Canakkale October 24th 2004

So finally, after 5+ weeks of traveling, I made it to Canakkale, no more than 500km away from Istanbul where I started off. A record-setting pace. Yeay. After Bozcaada I head over to the ruins of Troy. I daresay it was a bit much for my untrained eye. There are the ruins of 9 levels of city (Troy I-IX), from different periods, all on display simultaneously and more or less undistinguishable (and unremarkable). The informational signs (as usual) obviously didn't have the casual traveler in mind and didn't help me visualize what things must have been like. Definitely needs more work. The scene is complete with a lame "Trojan Horse" presumably meant to capture the imagination of the camera-toting tourist (I took a picture just to document the abomination). Oguz Atay (a Turkish author) has a ... read more
Quite peaceful without the dead and wounded
The sphynx: some wounds take time to heal
He who controls the past....




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