Blogs from Troy, Marmara, Turkey, Middle East

Gunyden - good morning. Another day in Turkey and it’s looking a little brighter. No rain. We are on our travels again; this time from Canukkale to Selcuk. We have our own little bus and our driver Ali welcomes us on board. As we are leaving Canukkale we pass a mosque and Burak explains that it is a relatively new building known as a foundation mosque - the Government pays for the foundations of the building and donations have to be raised to pay for the rest. Now to the cats… well Troy really, but it's all about the cats. We are met at the entrance gate by a hoard of fluffy lovelies. Some are happy to be fussed over so I get a little distracted by cat cuteness and fall behind with my usual notebook ... read more

Today we went to Troy on the way to Gallipoli. Up at 6.30 ish and ran downstairs, feeling super tired and not hungry, I know it will be a massive day so I grab a hard boiled egg and mash it onto a piece of bread. It's a long drive to Troy but it was a lovely day. Had fun, again, a lot of history and a quick walk. I'm really only focused on Gallipoli at this point so I kinda walk around quickly feeling I'm rushing. Stressed that my camera came up with an error yesterday!!! Can you believe it arghhhh! Hoping it will work as I'll be crushed if it doesn't work toMorrow! Got some photos in the Woodern horse and walked through the old ancient city.... read more

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, ... read more

This morning we left at 8.30 and we drove half an hour to Troy. On the way our guide told us about the legend of Helen of Troy and once we arrived we looked in the excavation building, and then went for a guided walk around the excavation sites. We learnt alot about the Trojan history which was really interesting. She told us about the 9 Troys, each village built on top of the one before after each one was destroyed, usually by earthquakes. We saw the original fortification walls dating all the way back to the 1st Troy village in 3000BC. We also saw the South Gate entrance to Troy 6, which is where Archilles killed Hector if the legends are true. After a couple of hours at Troy we it back on the bus ... read more

I'm not really sure about all the fuss over Troy. Helen and all that, plus the links to the creation of Rome. But anyway, it is virtually on the highway south out of Canakkale. It is interesting in some ways and I got a picture of the important bit, the palace walls of Troy VI and Hilary, So I guess that is Hilary of Troy. After Troy we left the highway to take some rather more interesting roads out to Babakale. Some through tiny villages with chickens in the street, and on one occasion an untethered foal which was a bit shocked by the Harley, but nothing bad happened. Other parts were on some lovely winding roads through olive groves, hills, and at times the coast, all of which was very pretty. Then there was the ... read more