cannakale

i was pleasantly surprised when my bus from bergama to canakkale took me straight into the part of town in which i wanted to be, as opposed to the otogar (bus station) which wasn't in that area...i liked this particularly because the map in lonely planet showed this area, but didn't show the bus station...i'm okay with walking long distances, but not so keen on doing so when i don't know where i'm going...basically, i prefer to have a map...
the first hotel i tried was closed for the winter season...i'm guessing they open up in april, not too long before anzac day...fortunately, someone sent me in a direction to find another place to stay...
i checked into my hotel then went for a walk...i got to watch the sunset, which was pretty, though not stunning...i don't think anyone gets excited about the sunsets in canakkale, though there are heaps of cafes and restaurant all along the waterfront...canakkale doesn't have the sights in town itself, but because of it's proximity to a couple other places people want to see (gallipoli and troy) it gets busy in spring, summer, and fall...the weather wasn't great, and it was getting to be late late afternoon, so i mostly went looking for food...there were quite a few doner places, and i loved the prices, which were among the cheapest i'd seen in turkey so far...woo hoo!!! i ate somewhere, then kept walking...

then i found a bakery...YUM...there were a number of items i wanted, i ended up choosing two...i took those back to my hotel room, and relaxed for a few hours before sleeping...
before the gallipoli tour the next day, i checked out a park/military museum close to my hotel...there were displays of weapons all through the park...mines, a few canons, etc...signs denoted the specifics of what i was seeing, as well as the country of origin...in the afternoon i went on my gallipoli tour, after which i returned to canakkale and went to eat at a doner place again...and i had more goodies from the bakery too...again, YUM...
the next morning i took my time getting out of my hotel, then walked a bus station (not the main, big one) where i caught a minibus to truva...truva is the turkish name for troy (i also saw it listed as troja) which you two of my readers should recognize as a place that gained fame from the author homer...

a while ago, back in the 1800s, a german guy became obsessed with finding troy, and thought he knew where it was...he ended up being right, but was so obsessed with it, and was looking for such a specific part of troy that he destroyed several layers, buildings, and more...archeology has come a long way since those days (in the late 1800s)...you don't get to dig like gangbusters at a site anymore...there are very specific procedures to follow to make sure nothing is lost or destroyed...not only was plenty destroyed during schliemann's original excavation, he took off with a number of artifacts after his dig was finished...those artifacts rightfully belong to turkey, (i think) but they're displayed in museums of various countries, like russia and germany...apparently there are some diplomatic spats taking place over those artifacts...turkey wants them back, of course; the other countries aren't so keen on giving them back...

troy wasn't just a single city...that is, it wasn't built once...the original troy (called troy I) was built way before the final city was built...i think the final was troy IX? or maybe it was only troy VI? each troy added a bit on the outside, as well as building up...the later troys sortof used the earlier troys as a ground layer...there are a few places in the ruins where you can see evidence from all of the different troys...they had different styles of building, though i probably wouldn't have noticed the small differences without the sign that pointed them out...

it definitely takes some imagination to figure out what troy used to look like...there are some walls left, but overall, it just looks like a bunch of rocks...it's easy to figure out the theatre, but that was the only place that was obvious to me...for the other locations in the ruins, i read the signs...
the bus back to canakkale came right when it was supposed to, and life was good...again, i had dinner at a doner restaurant (i've forgotten the turkish word for them) and dessert(s) from a bakery...

the next day was my last day in canakkale...checkout time for my hotel was at noon, and my original plan was to walk around the city all day...just walking, not worrying about seeing sights...but the weather was awful...windy as, and rainy...YUCK...it wasn't pouring rain, but it was raining just enough to annoy...argh...so i ate way more than i should, it was a way of staying inside, out of the rain...yuck yuck yuck...(though the extra food was quite tasty:)...when it got dark, i went back to my hotel and hung out in a lounge room...wasting time online:)
i'd booked a bus ticket that night, leaving for istanbul at 2300...but when i got to the bus company office at 2230, they told me the 2300 bus had a problem and wouldn't be going...my only option was to change my ticket for 0100....yippee skippe...