Pictures from this part of the trip can be found in Gallery.
We made sure we were packed the night before, and then hit breakfast as early as possible to start our 5-6 hour drive toward Gallipoli and Cannakale. After breakfast, Mark and Julie went to find the car, and soon we were on the road.
We probably made a wrong turn while working our way toward the highway, but other than that we didn't have any problems. We headed to Gallipoli along the European side of the water. Initially, we started out on large roads, but to save time we eventually moved onto some twisty side roads for a while. That turned out to be more of an adventure than anticipated, because by this time it was raining pretty hard.
Part-way through the drive, one time when the rain had dwindled, we decided to pick up some food and take a bathroom break. So, we left our route slightly and drove into a little town to stop at a Kipa grocery store, assuming we'd be able to find a bathroom. The town had one stop light, a lot of little cafes filled with only old men, and even more tractors than cafes.
There were also some interesting traffic rules. At the Kipa, Ken waited in the car, and watched as someone parked behind 3-4 cars in the lot, blocking them in. Some poor blocked-in person went through 10 minutes of contortions to free themselves, at which time the other car's driver coincidentally showed up and left, with nary a word of apology. As it turned out, the Kipa did not have a bathroom, but fortunately a gas station on the way out of town did.
Although it continued to rain intermittently, the skies were beginning to lighten by the time we found ourselves in the area of Gallipoli. We stopped at the first vistor center we saw to eat lunch. Eventually, we realized that it wasn't an official visitor center, but instead a sad, dumpy private visitor center of sorts, apparently constructed to lure people like us. At least it had a picnic shelter with a roof, so we ate our picnic lunch and Mark was even able to get some hot tea.
After this, we spent the afternoon at the Gallipoli battlefields, a war memorial for both Turkish and Anzac (Australian and New Zealander) troops. There was a visitor center at the beginning, but it charged an entry fee and didn't look like it was worth it. So, since the rain had stopped and the sun was out, we just drove the memorial loop along with lots of other cars and buses.
Besides memorials, there were informational displays and even a section of preserved trenches where the forces faced off for months on the side of a mountain. It reminded us a lot of the WWII Normandy coast — the terrain was similar, and there were some parallels in the way the battle proceeded (including some accidental landings at the wrong place, etc.).
After leaving the main park, we drive to the southern tip of the peninsula. We didn't find what we were originally looking for, but instead found the Canakkale Martyrs' Memorial, a Turkish war memorial right on the Dardanelles. It's huge and very impressive, but showed some of the same "lots of money to build, not as much to maintain" attitude we saw throughout Turkey. But, there were two separate and well-maintained helicopter landing pads.
After leaving the memorial, we drove around the bottom of the peninsula to Eceabat to catch the ferry over to Cannakale. It wasn't really very obvious what we were supposed to do, but eventually we saw other cars just lining up on the road, so we did the same thing. We paid when they opened the gate and let us drive onto the ferry.
After getting to Cannakale, our hotel turned out to be less than 5 minutes from where we rolled off the ferry. That was nice and close, but we weren't expecting another 1-lane road and valet parking — we weren't quite ready to quickly exit the car with all of our stuff. As it turned out, the hotel was adequate, but nothing special. The beds were odd, with only a sheet and not even a light blanket. (Maybe so we'd keep the room warm?)
For dinner, we had planned to go to a seafood restaurant on the water for dinner. However, as we walked over there, we noticed a fairly large (peaceful) protest right in front of the restaurant and decided to change our plans. Instead, we went to a little place to have pide (sort of Turkish pizza), where we had a very enthusiastic waiter who was apparently excited about the chance to practice his English (it was endearing).
After dinner, we decided to take a little walk, and went far enough down the harbor to find the big wooden Troy horse used in the recent Brad Pitt movie, as well as some sort of breakdancing competition. Then, it started raining again, so we headed back to the hotel for the night.
Since there was nothing to keep us in Canakkale, we ate breakfast early again and hit the road on our way to the archaelogical digs at Troy. On the way out of town, we stopped at another Kipa grocery store to buy food and water. (The daily "must buy bottled water" task became a theme of the rest of the trip.) The Kipa was kind of interesting. It turned out to be sort of a mall with a grocery store attached, and we had to go through a metal detector to get in.
After that, Troy was only a short drive down the main road. We almost missed it, though, because the sign for the turn off the highway wasn't very good. Actually, this site is called Troy (or "Troia"), but it may or may not be the same city from the Illiad. However, it was clearly a very popular settlement over the ages, with evidence of at least 13 civilizations between 3000 B.C. and the first century B.C.
It appears that part of the reason for its popularity is location: ancient sailing ships could only sail so far up-wind (they were mostly designed to go downwind). The prevailing winds on the Mediterranean are such that there are only 4-6 weeks per year that the winds allow for ships to get north of Troy, up toward modern Istanbul. So, Troy was probably a useful stopping-off point for traders to await favorable wind.
After wandering around, we ate our picnic lunch in the parking lot under a tree (fending off a curious stray cat), before hitting the road again. Since we had time, we changed our plans a little and headed to the ancient Greek city of Assos. The drive was another small-road adventure. The roads through the hills were narrow and winding, but it was worth it. The view from Assos was beautiful, probably the most spectacular of the whole trip (the Greeks were apparently fond of putting their temples in high places where everyone could see and be awed by them).
After finishing up at Assos, we drove some more rural, winding roads (less up and down but poorer condition) to Bergama. Once in Bergama (site of the ancient Pergamon), the Google Maps directions to the Hera Hotel told us to go up a road that wasn't actually passable by car. Fortunately, the hotel had put very good signs all over town pointing us toward each turn.
When we got to the hotel, they wanted to give us a tour of the place. The hotel is a beautiful old house, actually several buildings connected within a private square. Originally, this was a very fancy neighborhorhood. However, the post WWI period in Turkey, Bergama was resettled and the Greek residents returned to Greece. The house was taken over by a farming family who stabled their goats in the wine cellar. We also got to see the escape tunnel, something most houses in those days had (since closed due to risk of collapse).
For dinner, we walked to a meze place recommended by the hotel. However, at this point, we didn't really understand meze yet, so we had no idea what we were doing. The process was a little confusing. In the end, the meze we picked out of the refrigerator case (with hand gestures) were good, but the lamb kebabs two of us got were expensive and chewy. We were a little disappointed. On the other hand, we had a beautiful view of Bergama from a hilltop, and we continued our streak of eating outside at least one meal a day for entire trip so far.
The next morning, our goal was to look at the archaelogical site for ancient Pergamon. It turned out that we were the only guests at the hotel, so we had a private breakfast. While we were eating, Ken made an off-hand comment about all of the dogs barking outside. This apparently bothered the hotel owner, so he turned on some "American" music — which turned out to be a Frank Sinatra Christmas album. It was well-intentioned, but we giggled a little at it.
The hotel nicely let us keep our car parked with them while we walked around. Our first stop was downhill a little toward the Red Basilica, which is closed for restoration. We were only able to look at it from the outside. Then, we walked uphill toward the city's cable car and took that up to the ruins above the city.
The ruins are quite spectacular. Like we saw at Assos, the Greeks apparently liked to build their temple complexes on the top of large hills that made them very visible from below. Besides looking impressive, the engineering is also impressive. There were cisterns at the top of the hill filled by aqueducts and clay pipe from mountain sources miles away — we were amazed that the ancient engineers developed enough water pressure to fill the cisterns on top of the big hill.
After leaving the ruins proper, we headed back down the hill on foot, stopping at a mosaic museum on the way down. The exit to go down the hill wasn't clearly marked, and we didn't know we were on the path until it was too late. Unfortunately, by this time, Julie really had to use the bathroom, but there wasn't anywhere to stop once we left the complex. So, we went back to the hotel and they let us use their guest bathroom.
We asked the hotel for suggestions about lunch, but couldn't find the place they recommended, so we just ended up at a local pide place. After lunch, we picked up the car and drove to the other side of town to stop at Asklepion, another archaelogical dig that's the site of an ancient hospital complex. We spent an hour or so there, and then hit the road for Selcuk, our destination for the next two nights.
In Selcuk, we stayed at a place called Hotel Bella that's associated with a carpet and artwork/tilework store. They were very friendly. When we arrived, they gave us an overview of the area over some Turkish tea, and offered to drive us back and forth to Ephesus the next day.
The hotel also had a restaurant on the roof, where we took most of our meals. (The book said that the hotel restaurant was as good as anything else in town.) Dinner was the typical meze and kebab fare we had come to expect, but it was done well and was reasonably-priced. Plus, from up on the roof, we could look at quite a few different stork nests. The nests are so big that sometimes other birds build their nests inside the stork nests!
Like in Istanbul, Hotel Bella had a laundry service, so we dropped off some more laundry to be picked up the next day (this time at 10 TL per kilo). We also did some laundry ourselves in the room and let it hang-dry overnight.
The next morning, the hotel van took us to see Ephesus after breakfast. Ephesus is huge and fairly well-preserved, and there's a lot to see. We paid extra to go into an apartment complex that's being restored (it was buried in an earthquake). That was really interesting. We also got to see the old library, which was once as big as the library in Alexandria. In fact, all of the library materials were moved to Alexandria, and were then lost in the big fire there.
Another interesting site was the public bathroom, which featured running water. (And apparently, rich people sent their servants to the bathroom ahead of time to warm up a seat!)
After finishing up in Ephesus, we wandered through the original Basilica of St. Mary. Then, the hotel van picked up and brought us to the area of the Seven Sleepers caves, where the driver dropped us off at a Gozleme restaurant and even ordered for us. Gozeleme are sort of like giant crepes cooked over a wood-fired griddle. We split three savory ones and a nutella one for dessert.
After lunch, we spent a few minutes visiting the caves, and then the hotel van picked us up and brought us to what's left of the Temple of Artemis, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It was rather underwhelming, since what's left is just one pillar. However, it was interesting to consider that it was originally near the water, and is now 5 km inland (the big harbor at Ephesus silted in, part of the reason Ephesus was abandoned).
When we got back to the hotel, we decided to take a break from old stone artifacts and spent the afternoon at the Camilik Railway Museum. There was a lot to see, including Ataturk's personal railway car. On the way back, we drove up a big hill to the House of the Virgin Mary (a shrine), but admission and parking were both expensive and we decided not to go in.
Back at the hotel, one of the owners took us into the basement of his attached carpet store and gave us an hour-long demonstration of Turkish carpets over tea. It was pretty interesting, but Turkish carpets (especially heirloom carpets) are very expensive, and we don't have anywhere to put something like that anyway.
Afterwards, we got dinner at the hotel again, then took a walk and picked up some more water before settling in for the night.
The next morning, we got breakfast at the hotel, and then spent an hour wandering around the historic complex a few blocks from the hotel, including the ancient Basilica of St. John and an old mosque. Then, we got in the car and headed for Bodrum.
We originally had the idea that we were going to drive around and see the peninsula, but we didn't really understand what Bodrum is like. It's very built-up and touristy. First, we stopped for lunch at a little place recommended in our book and had a good lunch, including a few things that Mark had never heard of before. Then, we aimed for one of the public beaches in the book. It was a confusing drive, but we eventually found it. We paid a few TL for parking and then wandered around. The beach was an odd combination of sunburned northern Europeans and zoo animals (including peacocks and camels). It wasn't that appealing, so we gave up early and headed for our hotel.
The Antique Theatre Hotel turned out to be a pretty little place across the street from an ancient amphitheater. It had a pool overlooking the town. When we saw that, our other plans went out the door, and we decided to go for a swim and cool off. After an hour or so in the pool, we got dressed and headed into Bodrum proper.
Our first stop was the Mauseoleum at Halicarnassus, our second wonder of the ancient world in only two days. Most of it surived for over 1600 years, until it was broken up by the Knights of St John of Rhodes and used for lime to secure the castle in the harbor. They reputedly destroyed it in just a few days, and then managed to hold the castle for only a few weeks. What a waste.
After leaving the Mauseoleum, we walked down to the waterfront and looked around there before turning back. The walk back was longer than anticipated, and Julie was tired. We all underestimated how long it would take to get back — we had 8:00pm reservations at the hotel for dinner, and we arrived at 7:59pm.
Dinner at the hotel was nice. They set up a table next to the pool, overlooking the city and the sunset. It was an unusual Turkish dinner: no kebabs or meze! Ken had steak, Mark had grilled octopus, Mom had salmon, and Julie had mussels for an appetizer and a chicken casserole for her main course.
After dinner, the four of us sat in Ken and Julie's room and played cards for a while, before going to bed kind of early. That turned out to be a waste, since we were woken up by big fireworks two different times after 11:00pm. It wasn't clear, but it almost looked like the fireworks were being shot off a ship sitting in the harbor.
The next morning, we had breakfast at the hotel, then left the car there and walked back into the city to see Bodrum Castle and the related Bodrum Museum of Underwater Archealogy, both of which were pretty cool. We spent the whole morning there and saw just about everything, including a lot of interesting artifacts from various shipwrecks.
For lunch, we gave up on finding anything good or inexpensive in the touristy areas by the harbor, and ended up at McDonald's. It was the least-organized McDonald's we've ever seen, but at least we got big sodas. (Do not discount how exciting this was for Ken and Mark.)
After lunch, we walked the hour back to the hotel, got in the car, and headed out of town toward Marmaris. On the highway, as we got close, we saw a bunch of open-top jeeps full of what looked like very uncomfortable tourists.
In Marmaris, the hotel turned out to be very easy to find, and amazingly Mark was able to grab street parking right in front of the hotel. Check-in was confusing. They played some sort of game with us about which currency we wanted to be charged in (presumably to make money on exchange fees), but in the end we think we accidentally got a good deal by asking for euros.
Once we got settled in, we went looking for a way to do laundry, since we knew there would be no other opportunities during our week of sailing. That turned out to be more difficult than expected. The hotel laundry, unlike all of the other places, charged by the piece (3 TL for a pair of socks, yikes). Prior to leaving home, we had made a list of laundry places on our map of Marmaris, but most of them were near the marina because that's where we originally expected to be. So, we ended up wandering around the neighborhoods in the vicinity of the hotel. Marmaris is pretty ugly once you get a few blocks away from the waterfront.
After walking for an hour or so, working our way toward the places on our map, we ran across a laundry place with a sign out front advertising 35 TL for a single load. We went in to talk to the owner, and he offered to drop it off at our hotel the next morning at 9:00am. Since that was really helpful, we took him up on the offer, but as we left we realized we were a little unsure of what exactly we had negotiated.
After leaving the laundry, we turned back toward the coast and then walked along the waterfront and back to the hotel. We took a break at the hotel before going out for dinner at a little place nearby called Pacha Han. Dinner was odd. Marilyn and Mark had calzone, Julie had mushroom pasta, and Ken had chicken fajitas — what the heck, why not? The fajitas were served with french fries rather than tortillas, yogurt rather than sour cream, and some Turkish red sauce (that we'd seen before with meze) rather than salsa, but were pretty good overall. The restaurant initially lost half our order, but gave us free tea after dinner to make up for it.
After dinner, we walked up and down the waterfront taking in the sights. The walkway was really crowded, but it was Friday night, after all. There was live outdoor music at most places along the water (often in suprisingly good English), but there was also a lot of thumping bass. We got back to the hotel around 10:00pm and headed off to bed, thankfully insulated from the thumping bass.