Eceabat Hotel

... on the peninsula - and although we didn't have time to visit them all, we did visit alot of sites and the first place we stopped was the official museum. The museum was separated into a couple of sections, the first contained black and white pictures of the conflict at different times and from both sides, there was explanation to the different patterns/flags that the soldiers wore on there collars/shoulders to identify them with certain ...

... and over 30 people have died in floods on the outskirts of Istanbull so we got the bus out today a 5 hour ride taking us through the area that had flooded and it never stopped raining the whole way to our destination. <br><br>This is no fun and really really I thought that we were both going to die we passed the floods and then all the roads that we were travelling through were also ...

... fascinating &#8220;fairy chimneys&#8221; evoke nothing so much as anatomically correct erections &#8212; and circumcised ones at that. Imagine what a field day American film censors would have had if George Lucas had succeeded in his original plan to shoot Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace in Cappadocia.<br><br>Nobody knows who the original inhabitants of the region were, or who first hollowed out shelters in the soft rock of these sheltered ...

This had better be worth it we thought as the boat from Canakkale to Gökçeada bounced and threw us all over the place. Luckily it was!<br><br>The true moral of the story should be, never assume that the hotel right on the waterfront and closest to you will be too expensive. Don't schlep off up a mountain for an hour trying to find a cheap room in the blazing sun when actually, I could have walked approximately ten metres and got what turned out to be ...

... we had more or less enough time to complete the circuit in a manner that suited us and build in time for a Gulet Cruise of the Southern Turkish Coast. As with so many planned activities of our trip, and so many unplanned activities, the bus has been quite frustrating.<br><br>We were met at 7:00 am at the pick up point by an amicable you Kiwi named Hayden, who had left his job at Barclay's in Edinborough, or gotten fired, and started traveling. He ended up in ...

... a major celebrity! <br><br><br>On the grounds, we chatted with a sculptor who was completing his 12<br>months of military service with the Turkish army. He was digging out<br>the grass from between the sidewalk bricks with a small hand tool. <br>The irony of this was not lost on any of us......sculpting wood,<br>stone, metal, and now, wild weeds!<br><br><br>The following day, we booked a tour to the nearby ancient city of Troy. <br ...

June 1st - Istanbul to Eceabat (Gallipoli)<br><br>We had a bit of a dilemma this morning. Zac (the guy who had told us about the bus) was sound asleep in our dorm when we left to catch the bus. We couldn't decide whether to wake him up or not, surely he would have set his alarm if this bus was the one he was supposed to catch? Deciding to leave him we met the bus and checked the passanger list (not that this helped as we didn't know his name at this stage) to see if he was supposed ...

... to Chunuk Bair, an important battlefield for the New Zealanders and the site of their big cemetary and momument. But it was after 4 pm and we decided it would be fairly stupid to continue uphill at that point. After cruising downhill for a while, we had another punishing climb up before battling the wind for the last 10km. We were very glad we turned around when we did and in the end probably rode for at least 40km. Overall we had a great day and it was ...

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... the coastal road passed on the way to the turn-off. Or . . . . I could try that dirt road short cut on the near side. <br><br>Up the road only about a quarter of a mile it ended at the gate of a military reserve. So I thought I would try the next best (to me, mind you) thing, and climb up to go over the hill. I'm terrible at guessing heights and distances and such, but, perhaps 200 feet high this hill appeared. I started to walk up through a ...