Tag: Çanakkale

A Short Visit To Turkey Part Four: From Çanakkale To Pamukkale Via Troy, 14 November 1995

A rather unconvincing wooden Trojan Horse monument at Troy

We knew we were in for a long drive from Çanakkale to Pamukkale that day, but still wanted to see Troy before setting off on the longest leg of our road trip.

Having been spoilt the previous few days…

In truth, after Ephesus and Pergamon the previous couple of days, Troy was rather a disappointment.

…the ruins of Troy didn’t really hack it for us. View from the fake Trojan Horse

Troy has been built, razed and rebuilt many times, possibly not always in exactly the same place. There’s not a lot to see and it all seemed a bit confused/confusing/unconvincing. The wooden horse thing depicted above was a particular source of my de4rision on the day.

Excavated bridge into on of the old city’s was probably the highlight

Then the long drive to Pamukkale. It was billed as being over six hours and my goodness that’s what it took. We shared the driving and/but needed the odd pit stop, so we were really quite nervous towards the end of the drive as we realised that we had failed to get to our destination before dark and would be driving the last 45 minutes or so in darkness.

But get there we did. I think Ros had recommended the place we stayed and by gosh that was relaxing and fun. But that’s for the next write up.

Here and below is a link to all the photographs we took on that trip to Turkey, although, as it happens, all four from Troy have found their way into the above piece.

023 The Great Library and stuff at Ephesus T_1995_G1_Photo32_30A

A Short Visit To Turkey Part Three: A Fine Day Including A Fine, A Visit To Pergamon & A Night In Çanakkale, 13 November 1995

Daisy hadn’t much enjoyed doing the driving in those first couple of days; driving in and out of Izmir is not much fun and was traffic heavy almost all the time.

But when we set off from Izmir in the direction of Pergamon, we hit open road quite quickly…

…so Daisy took the opportunity to hit that road quickly – 90 to 100 kmph…

…until the speed cops flagged us down, about 5 minutes outside Izmir.

Although Janie was doing the driving, I thought best that I act as spokesperson for our team.

The police officer pointed at the speed sign, which read “70 km”. He tried to say “seventy kilometres an hour” in English.

Ah, I said, kilometres…not miles…

“Ingiliz”, said the officer to his mates, as if to confirm his theory. “Kilometres” he said to me, pointedly.

I thought we might get away with it, but he then promptly wrote out the above ticket and pointed to where I needed to go to settle the bill.

140,000.

That’s harsh. 140,000 just for speeding.

Then it dawned on me that there were 82,000 Turkish Lira to the £.

The fine was £1.70

I might have paid £1.70 for the beautiful certificate we were given as a souvenir.

So on to Pergamon, which was a stunning site.

Asclepon – the medical centre at Pergamon

Pergamon Town

The Acropolis

After the stunning sights of Pergamon, we drove on to Çanakkale, keen to get there before dark.

We just about made it, although once we got to the town, we struggled to find one of the recommended hotels open. But we did find one that looked just fine; the Grand Anzac.

I recall we also managed to find a good meal in that charming coastal town.