The Grand Tour: Troy, Gallipoli and Ephesus

Pure Kitsch, but I couldn't resist taking this photo.

Our trip to Troy and Gallipoli took a little different shape than expected. In developing our itinerary, we decided to devote one of our “Istanbul days” to a tour of Gallipoli and Troy. We knew others who’d made the trip in a day. The first question we asked the hotel when we arrived was where we could find out about such a tour. They said they’d direct us to a tour agency first thing the next morning, Monday. They were good to their word and took us around the corner to an agency with the ironic name (you’ll see why later) of Hassle Free Travel. They specialize in providing tours to Australians and New Zealanders to the battlefields of Gallipoli. In fact, they operate a hostel in Çanakale (town closest to Troy and Gallipoli sites) called ANZAC (Australian New Zealand Army Corps) House. It’s also their office and a kind of waiting room for one of the bus lines. Anyhow, the travel agent there said there were no day tours as the trip down lasted five hours. We’d have to include an overnight. Not wanting to give up that much time from our Istanbul stay we agreed on a marathon itinerary: leave Istanbul on Wednesday night at about midnight and ride all night to Çanakale. After spending Thursday touring Troy and Gallipoli, we’d take another all night bus to Selçuk (town nearest Ephesus) and spend Friday touring Ephesus. Friday night we’d finally get a hotel room, and the fly back to Gaziantep from Izmir on Saturday – the plane ticket was already purchased.

Well, come Wednesday night we were packed and ready. We were supposed to be picked up at 11 PM, but no one came. Finally, the hotel clerk took a look at our papers all written in Turkish and said we weren’t due to be picked up until the next night. Everything was off by a day. That was a bit annoying, since we’d spent to much time looking at an actual calendar with the travel agent, but there wasn’t much we could do. We went back to our room and went to bed. The next morning we went to the travel agent. He was able to rebook us on a bus that morning. It meant that we’d tour Troy and Galipoli on Friday, take a midnight bus Friday night, tour Ephesus Saturday morning and make a dash of the airport after lunch. That didn’t give us as much time in Ephesus as we wanted but it was better than nothing. So that’s what we did. In the end, it turned out to be the better option as Ted was struggling with a cold or something. It helped that he didn’t have those two all-night bus rides at the beginning of the trip.

Impressions: Visiting Troy is a kind of pilgrimage. Most Americans read the Odyssey at some point, in high school or college; if not, they’ve probably seen some film version. Everyone knows about the Trojan horse and perhaps other images from the epic, such as sailors tied to the mast to avoid responding to the call of the sirens. Anyone, we just had to go. Troy is really an archeological dig. There are some sizable remnants of walls, so chunks of what had been friezes, a couple of intact altars, etc. However, most of what you see are foundations of what had been structures of some sort. The photo to the left shows sacrificial altars, with the Troy battlefield in the background.

The guide explains what sort of structures those had been (i.e., a Roman bath, a house, etc.) However, it is hard to develop an image in your head of what the city might have looked like in any of its eight or nine incarnations. Fortunately, there were several artistic renderings of what archeologists thought it have looked like. These were most helpful.


During out four-hour tour of Gallipoli we only visit the ANZAC sites, not the British or French areas. The trip was made all the more poignant as the only others on the tour were Australians: one a young doctor and the other a career army officer on leave from his posting in Afghanistan.

On the ferry across the Dardenelles to Gallipoli. On the hill in the background in the message: walkers beware. In these hills are the bones of soldiers who died for their country.

You don’t have to be from Australia or New Zealand to be moved by the site – and by the way, four times as many Turks died there two, defending their homeland. Anyone would find it wrenching to read gravestones with words like “my darling only son” etched below the name of some 17-year old who had fallen in that disaster.

An ANZAC cemetery with our two friends in the background.

After just a couple of days, the ANZAC troops were dug into trenches, with the Turkish soldiers in trenches facing them. That’s the way it stayed the entire time. However, the site does have special meaning for citizens of those countries. The young military officer also knew his military history well, and not just about Gallipoli. For example, he told us why they didn’t lose anyone during their retreat from Gallipoli. It turns out they figured out a way to rig their rifles to water that dripped into a container. When the weight of the water reached a certain point, the rifle fired and the Turks thought there were still soldiers in the trenches firing them. We also visited the Turkish cemetery. They only had names and hometowns on the gravestones. At first I was surprised to see soldiers from places like Aleppo and Damascus. Then I remembered that there wasn’t a “Turkey” yet, and that Aleppo and Damascus were cities in the old (nearly defunct) Ottoman Empire.

Click on this to read Ataturk's touching message to all those Australians and New Zealander's who lost family on Turkish soil.

After the tour, we returned to ANZAC house. They showed the Mel Gibson film Gallipoli (he starred in it, didn’t make it), which reinforced a lot of the impressions I had from seeing actual sites. I asked the Australian officer whether he thought it was stupidity and bad leadership that led to the disaster. He thought a lot of it had to do with bad communications. It was a tragedy nonetheless. Perhaps one good thing did come of it. Ataturk made his name there, and it was because of this leadership that he was able to mobilize the Turks to keep the occupying forces from dividing up Anatolia. If he hadn’t, the Turks might be speaking Russian today.

Not too bad -- after an all-night bus ride from Çanakale. This is the library in Ephesus.

Unlike Troy, you can clearly visualize what Ephesus must have been like. Actually, the Ephesus you visit today is only its Roman incarnation. It truly is an amazing site. Above is a photo of the weary travelers in front of the reconstructed facade of the library. The arch on the right takes you into the commercial agora. It once held 12,000 scrolls, all burned by invading Goths. Across the street from the library is the brothel. That location made for a lot of jokes: Honey, I'm just running down to the library. See you in a couple of hours.." Yeah, right. Below is a picture of Ted standing at the top of Curetes Street; you can see the library in the background.

A series of small stores would have lined the right side of the street. Curetes Street ended at the library where you make a right turned into a street variously named Marble Street or Sacred Way. This leads you to the theater. It seated 25,000 people. Hard to imagine.

From any seat in the theater you looked down Harbor Street into what at one time had been a harbor; it eventually silted up. There was a much small theater (Odeon) in the "government" area of the city, as well as a political agora (as opposed to the much larger commercial agora). Through out the city there are ruins of what much once have been impressive gates and temples. In fact, the place almost seems littered with slabs of ornately carved slabs of marble. Below is yours truly in front of a carving of Nike. (Had to work that in.)

Sadly, we had to leave after touring the city. There is lots more to see in the area but we had a plane to catch. Classes resumed Monday, February 1. The Grand Tour had come to an end.