Life in Istanbul: The Trojan Horse (and other adventures)

This weekend, I went to Çanakkale, Turkey. It's probably no more than a six hour bus ride, but we stopped a lot so it took longer. Anyways, Çanakkale is the town that's close to Gallipoli, Assos, and Troy. So I got to see and learn about some pretty sweet stuff.

We left at like midnight Friday and got to Gallipoli pretty early Saturday morning. I think our first stop was around 7:30 AM. It was freeeeezing and extra windy, as in it was impossible to walk straight--definitely one way to wake you up. We spent the day traveling the battlefields and cemeteries of the Gallipoli Campaign (during WWI). It was pretty significant in the history of modern day Turkey. Basically Turkey shut down the Dardanelles and Bosphorous Straits to make it hard for the Allies to get goods to and from Russia. The Allies decided to attack Turkey, especially in the area around the Dardanelles, both by land and by sea. The Dardanelles is pretty well protected naturally, the water moves really fast and its surrounded by hills, giving the Turkish an immediate advantage. The Allies were easily defeated at sea, but the land battles were more intense. A ton of men died on both sides, but the Turkish didn't give up the Dardanelles. Mustafa Kemal was one of the great leaders in these battles, and he later founded the Turkey we know today.

So touring around, we not only saw the battlefields, but the memorials and cemeteries to remember those who fought in the Gallipoli Campaign.

Some of the buildings built into the hillside to defend the Dardanelles

Turkish cemetery

Basically the most important monument in Turkey...and I look so awkward because its colder than you can imagine, and I'm fresh off an overnight bus trip

Australian Cemetery

Our first stop on Sunday was to Assos. It was on top of a mountain, and the views were amazing. It was really nice and sunny out, too, which made it even better. It was established back in the day (about 900-1000 BC) and encouraged philosophy--Aristotle lived in Assos.

Temple of Athena ruins

Then, we visited Troy. Like the historical Trojan Horse, Troy. And like the movie. Troy was build and destroyed a bunch of times over a period of 4,000 years. Archaeologists recognize Troy I-IX...and most of them were re-built cities though some of them were just expansions. The "famous" Troy that we know about is Troy VI, the time of the Trojan war. There was a lot going on...Paris ran off with Helen to live in Troy, even though she was married to Menelaos. He wanted revenge but failed many times. Finally, there are intense battles: Hector falls to Achilles, Paris gets Achilles in the heel (aha!) and Paris gets killed, but the Trojans still refuse to give up Helen. So that's when the Greeks (though they called themselves something different) came up with the plan to leave a wooden horse secretly filled with soldiers as a gift for Athena. They left the horse at the gates of Troy and burned their camps to show that they had given up. The story goes, that the horse got into the walls of Troy, and the Greeks destroyed everything and killed many people. Basically after that, the Greeks had some pretty bad luck for a while.