Tavaklı

It doesn't nearly do justice to either of the mentioned sights to talk about them in one "footprint". But I don't want to overload you—and myself, in a different way— with posts, so let me try to cover these two sights here...

I had not heard about the Gallipoli fights of ww1 until recently, nor of the dardanelle straits to be honest, and heard about it, I think, while travelling from the cool Lebanese guy I met in Thessaloniki (if you're reading this ;) ). I did then research quite a bit before visiting, but cannot cover all aspects.

So I'll have to just link you to Wikipedia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallipoli_campaign and this documentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZopDQ-nf3lE. Basically, the allies sent so many anzacs (aussies and kiwis) with bad intelligence, bad orders, bad organization, to die at Gallipoli. And Atatürk —mustafa kemal — managed to defeat the allies, with way fewer men (and many, many, many losses). But the conditions were horrendous.

All I can say about visiting is, after having watches the documentary and read about the anzac advances, is that the terrain is so challenging; that it's impossible to imagine what they went through. But still, being there, with all the cementeries and monuments, you cannot help but imagine it, and respect the war, knowing it happened there. (Especially "the nek": watch the documentary.)

So, then, next day, troy. The city of Homer's tales; and we don't know whether the tales are true and where. Well, a guy at the reception of the hotel said " there wasn't much to see*. How blind he was or must be. They have excavated the remains of the city dating back, partially, to the bronze age 3000bc— and tell you which part of the city belonged to what time. It was incredibly interesting, because they built and rebuilt the city up until 4th AD (if I understood correctly). Every time rebuilding it upon the (destroyed) remains of the old troy.

For reference, troy one was only 100m *100 m approximately, up to 30 hectares for the troy of homers tales.

Now it has been blown up a bit because of these tales—it might not have been because of love but because of the wealth that it was attacked—but it is a fascinating story and city.

Lastly, I visited Alexandria Troas. A city about 2000 years old: huge remaining baths are very impressive to see.

Sorry for the brevity but I cannot be too detailed here. Now in a nice art camping which I stumbled on, which didn't seem to be on either google or openstreetmaps. I added it to the latter. And I wrote this in a hangmat.

I will upload other pictures at a later point.Read more