This is our last full day in Turkey - we close the loop of our 2,269 mile journey around the western half of the country. We'll catch a few more sights as we head to our last night in a hotel adjacent to Istanbul Airport.
We look out our hotel window - yep, looks like a nice day to travel.
We leave our hotel on the edge of Çanakkale, and drive to the center of the city. The day before we had passed by the remains of the city of Troy, about 20 miles southwest of the hotel.
"In Greek mythology, the Trojan Horse was a wooden horse used by the Greeks during the Trojan War to enter the city of Troy and win the war. The Trojan Horse is not mentioned in Homer's Iliad, with the poem ending before the war is concluded, and it is only briefly mentioned in the Odyssey. But in the Aeneid by Virgil, after a fruitless 10-year siege of Troy, the Greeks constructed a huge wooden horse at the behest of Odysseus, and hid a select force of men inside, including Odysseus himself. The Greeks pretended to sail away, and the Trojans pulled the horse into the city as a victory trophy. That night, the Greek force crept out of the horse and opened the gates for the rest of the Greek army, which had sailed back under the cover of darkness. The Greeks entered and destroyed the city, ending the war."
The spot on the map that was the ancient city of Troy is now just escavated foundations and ruble - a.k.a. "nothing to see here". On the plaza adjacent to the marina in Çanakkale is this model of how Troy appeared back in the day - rock defensive walls with mud/brick/timber dwellings - it's easy to see how nothing really survived.
So instead, we're here in Çanakkale to see a Trojan Horse - it's Brad Pitt's from his 2004 movie "Troy" - right here next to the model of Troy.
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Looking across the marina, and the Dardanelles Strait, to the Gallipoli Peninsula , we saw this large installation:
"Traveller halt! The soil you tread, once witnessed the end of an era."
It's an homage to the events of the Gallipoli Campaign, where at great costs to both sides, the Turkish forces repelled allied efforts to defeat the Ottomans, and gain control of the seaways of the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea.
We then cross over the straits and onto the Gallipoli Peninsula over an unexpectedly big bridge - and we thought we would just be crossing a "bridge". Turns out, it's the biggest suspension bridge in the world - a mile and a quarter of bridge span between the towers.
"The 1915 Çanakkale Bridge spans the Dardanelles, about 10 km (6.2 mi) south of the Sea of Marmara. The bridge was officially opened on 18 March 2022 after roughly five years of construction. The year "1915" in the official Turkish name honors an important Ottoman victory against firstly a naval engagement followed by a land invasion on the Gallipoli peninsular by the forces of Australia, New Zealand (The ANZACS), France and The United Kingdom from 25th April 1915."
With a main span of 2,023 m (2.023 km; 1.257 mi), the bridge surpasses the Akashi Kaikyo Bridge (1998) in Japan by 32 m (105 ft)."
From Wikipedia - source not copyrightable.
Then we pay a quick visit to the town of Eceabat to see what there is to see. We saw a loyal fisherman's dog patiently waiting for the return of its master.
Almost the last mosque minaret we may see for awhile...
"Eceabat is the nearest town to the World War I Gallipoli Campaign battlefield sites, as well as to the cemeteries and memorials to the more than 120,000 Turkish, British, French, Australia and New Zealand soldiers killed during the campaign. This has led to its becoming a major tourism center, especially around 18 March and 25 April (ANZAC Day), when the two different sides of the struggle commemorate their roles in what happened.."
The obligatory "puzzle picture" shot...
On the road to Istanbul Airport...it's been a packed 30 days of Turkish Touring, next stop Cyprus!
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