Talking Turkey

Istanbul

June 14th 2010 Monday

Arrival in Istanbul Ataturk Airport at 17:55 with EK121. Our representative Mr Ercan PIROL will meet you regarding your flight details and transfer you to Centrum Hotel.

Centrum Hotel was a great little hotel right in the middle of the old part of Istanbul. The location is perfect for walking to most of the tourist sites. The tram is just a short walk and there were restaurants all around outside it. We loved exploring these street. Our first two days we had local tours of Istanbul booked.

June 15th 2010 Tuesday(Breakfast and Lunch Included)

08:30 pick up from hotel for the full day regular Bosphorus Cruise & Two Continents Tour This was a great ride in a boat around some beautiful waterfront properties. Conditions were ideal for a boat trip. Istanbul is the only city in the world that is in two continents, Europe and Asia. It was the end of the Silk Road.

Visit Spice Market: This bazaar was amazing the smells of spice and the rich colours we returned here a number of times.

Dolmabache Palace the last residence of the sultans.This is right on the edge of the Bosphorus an amazing set of buildings with everything one would expect of a palace.

The Intercontinental Bosphorus bridge to Camlica Hill: This enormous suspension bridge crosses between Europe and Asia.

June 16th 2010 Wednesday(Breakfast and Lunch Included)

08:30 pick up from your the full day regular Byzantine & Ottoman Relics

Visit the Hagia Sophia, a 5th century church, once the greatest in the entire world. This place was enormous it started out a Christian church, was turned into a Muslim Mosque and is now a museum. When the Ottoman (Muslims) took it over they plastered over the Christian mosaics and painted the plaster. The mosaics still exist and were not damaged. It was made into a museum by Atuturk.

The Blue Mosque renowned for its striking blue Iznik tiled interior. Amazing and right next door and to Hagia Sophia.

The ancient Roman Hippodrome. This was not what we expected, actually we found ourselves walking through it without realising where we were. A big flat area with lots of people day and night. Hard to visualise how it would have been in ancient times.

The Grand Bazaar. It is easy to spend an entire day in the enormous covered in bazaar. So much to see, every one of the shops has just what you need. Yeah right! But well worth exploring we returned here and spent a day at our leisure exploring haggling and playing with the shop keepers.

The Imperial Palace of Topkapi from which Ottoman Sultans ruled their grand empire for over 400 years. An amazing palace, especially the harem section and the treasures. They did amazing things with gold and jewels. In its time the Palace and the surrounding grounds were similar to the Forbidden City in China.

The Rustempasa Mosque. This mosque was older than the Blue Mosque and the tiles in it were amazing.

Another great day but everything happened so quickly we were looking forward to our days at the end of our holiday to revisit these places.

June 17th 2010 Thursday(Breakfast and Lunch Included)

Pick up at 06:25-06:30 from hotel and drive with the tour bus to Gallipoli Tour.

This was a big day out, we left early and returned late, it takes 6 hours by bus. It would be good to travel down and stay nearby. There are options we found this day was very tiring. 6 hours on the bus there and 6 hours on the bus back home again.

After lunch visit The World War I battlefields of Gallipoli are now a serene site. The battle fields now have more trees and plants growing there. Apparently at the time the campaign took place this area was barren with very little growth, now it looks very different. There is an eeriness standing at these battle sites, the museum was sobering. I had never stopped to consider the losses for the Turks. A quote from Atuturk after he had met a group of soldiers retreating as they saw the ANZACs landing.

He ordered them back to their posts. “I am not ordering you to fight for your country. I am ordering you to die for your country.”

Gallipoli Museum. This includes an interesting collection of war memorabilia from the campaign and a number of stories including personal letters. Fascinating.

ANZAC Cove, Standing down on the beach and looking up to the cliffs was very moving. We had walked past a number of soldier graves down to the beach and I had noticed a large number were under 20, younger than our three sons. When they landed at 4:30 they must have wondered just what they had got themselves into. As daylight formed they would have been looking up into the rugged terrain and probably realising the hopelessness of their situation. The batlle continued for 7 months.

Visit the Lone Pine Australian Memorial, The soldiers fought their way through rugged country to get up to here. We did not get the opportunity to walk up through the tracks used, (a good reason to stay closer) We took our bus up to the top battle grounds. The Australian Memorial at Lone Pine was significant. The outlook over ANZAC Cove and the shoreline quite stunning today.

Chunuk Bair New Zealand Memorial, On this site I was surprised that our memorial shared it with a statue of Atuturk. Apparently it was up here where he was involved in battle and a nearby explosion sent shrapnel in his direction. A piece shattering a pin holding a medal on to his chest. Thus he was saved by the pin. This spot enables clear views of both sides of the peninsula. The very reason it was so fought over

Johnston's Jolly and Kaba Tepe Each of these places has its own stories that make it worth spending time here.

A lot of people travel to Gallipoli for the April 25 memorial services. The place is extremely busy on this day. We found that it still held a strong feeling of significance on the day we were there. We could have spent more time exploring some of the battle sites. One place that really got me thinking about the horrors that this place must have held was where we stopped to view the trenches. The front lines of trenches were only 8 metres apart. This is the width of the road. Both sides would need to keep their heads down. The loss so many fine young men. Actually with the unrest going on worldwide today we haven’t really learned anything have we?

Arrive hotel at about 22:00-22:30. Actually it was midnight when we got back to the hotel. We were wise to have a free day in Istanbul the next day.

A Warning about Health and Safety

Three days into our Turkey Holiday and we had been on the move non stop. After Our big day down to Gallipoli we were ready for an easy day. Actually we had developed stomach upsets. Ruth being less comfortable than me at this stage. We later discovered that upset stomach is common among tourists in Turkey. We had been careful and still are not sure how we contracted it. They call it "Sultan's Revenge" We found out the best way to cure it is to go to a pharmacy and buy pills to control when you go along with a course of anti biotics. We also discovered you don't need to go to a doctor as you just request what you want and they supply. The whole experience did not stop us from doing anything but we found we were lacking energy and knowing what we know now we would go to the pharmacy earlier rather than hope it would work its way out of our system.

Our rest day was spent exploring around where we were staying and a visit back to the Spice Market. The next morning we flew out of Istanbul early to Cappadocia.