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Published: August 28th 2012
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Up early again today – 7am wake up to ensure we get to the gates of Troy before they opened the gates. Breakfast was slightly disappointing, for a 5-star hotel it certainly didn’t match its ratings. Anyway, muesli and yoghurt consumed and ready for a day of adventure, we took off for Troy. On arrival, through the gates we were met with a sight of the big famous wooden horse. Now, I won’t go into too much detail behind the history of Troy, I’ve probably lost many readers after yesterday’s step back in history. But in a nutshell, Troy is an ancient city that was destroyed by the Greeks in a war that started cos some young Trojan prince stole the wife of a Greek king. The Greeks, who couldn’t initially break through Troy’s massive walls, decided to trick them instead by constructing a large wooden horse and leaving it on the beach for the Trojans to discover. When they found it the next morning, the Trojans believed it was a gift from the gods and so they wheeled the giant horse through their gates and proceeded to celebrate the Greek surrender and the gift from the gods. Later that night,
after the festivities had finished, Greek soldiers emerged from their hiding place within the horse and eliminated the Trojan sentries and opened the gates to the city, letting in the entire Greek army who plundered the city and burnt it to the ground. Ok, there’s the story, hope you’re still with me. The site of the city of Troy wasn’t discovered until the 19
thcentury. To be honest, there isn’t a lot there and you have to use quite a lot of your imagination. If it wasn’t for the big bloody wooden horse, you’d think it was just a pile of rubble. Now, obviously, this wasn’t the real thing and I’m glad I didn’t have to explain to Rach that this was a replica. Our guide advised that nobody knows exactly how big the Trojan horse, but I reckon the replica looks about right. I think there must’ve been some pretty stupid people in the Trojan hierarchy to allow such a bizarre gift into the city, especially one found at the exact spot the Greek’s were camped just a few days earlier. So we wandered through the ancient ruins, learning how the city was destroyed and rebuilt on numerous occasions, and
the deeper excavations went they’d find the remnants of earlier structures. After an hour or so was wondering, it was time to hit the bus again.
On the way to our next destination, we watched the movie Troy to see how Hollywood depicted the demise of the ancient city. We stopped off for lunch and unfortunately we discovered we had stopped off at a roadside buffet. The food was again ordinary to say the least and I settled for a salad, not game enough to try anything that sort of depicted meat.
After lunch, we headed to Pergamum, another site that was once an ancient hospital. Quite amusingly, the site is right next to an army base and the girls were warned not to speak to the soldiers if they yelled out whilst we walked past. Sure enough, as we walked up the pathway towards the site, a few soldiers could be seen peering through the fences. We found a posy and a guide told us the history behind the site. It was absolutely blowing a gale and it was difficult to hear but we got the general gist and then headed off to explore. The site was
still in really good shape, with marble columns still upright and an ancient tunnel that the sick used to walk through to receive treatment. Above them, there were little vents and priests and doctors used to speak relaxing, comforting words to aid in the healing process. We played doctors and nurses for a bit, messing about preaching through the vents and hoping the person would be better on the other side. We found a good location for a spot of jump-shotting and a running spring water stream to cool down in the sweltering heat. Then it was back to the bus, and took a quick time-out for a Twister icy-pole.
And that was our day, it took us another couple of hours drive to Selcuk. Next stop...Ephesus.
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