Day Three: Galata and Beyoglu

The bus journey back was somehow more comfortable and we got to Istanbul feeling relatively well rested.  The bus company gave us a free lift back to Sultanahmet where luckily the Ambassador Hotel was able to let us into our room early.  We spent the morning catching up on a bit of sleep and showering.

Galata Tower, Istanbul

In the afternoon we headed for the Galata Bridge over the Golden Horn, stopping at a kebab shop for lunch on the way.  The plan was to explore the more modern Beyoglu part of town which is dominated by the Galata Tower, a Genoese watch tower from the 13th century.  The tower, which I climbed last time but decided against this time, has given its name to this part of town, as well as to Galatasary Football Club.  After getting to the base of the tower (and walking through a bit of a rain shower) we carried on north to the main shopping street in the city - Istiklal Street.  At the northern end of this street (where we did lots of browsing but not much buying) we got to Taksim Square, the heart of the modern city.  Frankly it isn’t much to look at but its worth going to as a chance to see where the locals go.

On the way back we stopped off at the Spice Bazaar, which was satisfyingly crowded. It was our last night in Istanbul, but the persistent rain put us off going out for dinner, meaning that instead we went to the hotel restaurant.  The view from here is probably one of the best in the city and the meal they provided was really excellent - I don’t know why we hadn’t eaten here before.  There was nobody else in the restaurant, so we ate it slowly while playing a game of cards.


Day Four: Basilica Cisterns and Suleymaniye Mosque

Basilica Cisterns, Istanbul

There were still four sights that I wanted to show Ellie in Istanbul - the Grand Bazaar, the Suleymaniye Mosque, the Basilica Cisterns and the Chora Chuch.  At 8 in the evening we would be getting the overnight bus to Ohrid in Macedonia, so there was a lot to pack in, so with foursight it was going to be a hectic day (har har).  We started at the Basilica Cisterns, a vast underground chamber built by the Byzantines to hold water from the aqueducts before distributing it to the Royal Palace.  Essentially just a giant tank, the Byzantines decided to make the most of it and built it with row upon row of ornate columns and a high, vaulted ceiling.  Now the water has been drained to leave a couple of feet of water in which there are some pretty hefty carp swimming about.  A wooden walkway has been built where the masses of visitors can do their best to get a non-blurred photo of the darkened cavern, while soothing pan pipe music is pumped into the chamber to add to the ambiance.

Inside Suleymaniye Mosque

After coming out of the Basilica Cisterns we headed to the Grand Bazaar.  Having already visited it in this blog I won’t go into it in much detail, except to say that it was a fair bit more busy than when I visited last.  Near to the bazaar is the Suleymaniye Mosque, lesser known to visitors to the city but a key part of the minareted skyline and the resting place of Suleyman the Magnificent.  There was a service going on when we turned up so we went to the nearby shops for Ellie to buy a pashmina and came back half an hour later.  The mosque is a lot simpler inside than its blue counterpart, but is impressive nonetheless and doesn’t seem so orientated towards tourists.  The Chora Chuch, a Byzantine chuch which was the last place I wanted to see, is right on the edge of town and with time running out we decided it would be too difficult to get to.  I guess it gives me an excuse to come back again.  We made our way back to Sultanahmet for a kebab and some sweetcorn (the latter is sold all over the city on little stands as a snack) before saying goodbye to the staff at the Ambassador, which now feels like a home away from home.  The taxi to the Otogar was pretty frantic as Istanbul has perhaps the worst road system in the world, meaning that a 20 minute journey took nearly an hour and a half, but luckily we got there in time and were on our way to Macedonia.

Day One: Goreme Open Air Museum

The overnight bus was pretty painful.  Don’t get me wrong, the company was pretty good and the bus was impressively comfortable, but coaches just aren’t designed to be slept on and neither of us got much sleep.  We arrived at the town of Nevsehir at about 7am and had to change buses to a ‘servis’ which took us to Goreme in Cappadocia where we would be staying.  The bus station at Goreme had a great system whereby you gave the information desk the phone number of your hotel and they would arrange a pick up.  We were staying at the Dream Cave Guesthouse and after the driver dropped us off and we had stored our luggage, we were invited to join in with the hearty breakfast that had been provided.

Goreme Open Air Museum

We couldn’t check in until 11, so despite our tiredness we decided to make the most of the morning and headed up to the 'Goreme Open Air Museum’.  While it doesn’t sound like much, this is one of the most recommended attractions in all of Turkey.  The site is home to lots of Byzantine monasteries carved into the rock formations.  I’m not too keyed up on the history of the area (we are doing a tour tomorrow which should fill us in a bit), but from what I have gathered it has been a hiding place for Christians over the years.  The paintings in many of the caves were fairly basic and the site was completely stuffed with package tour shutterbugs (it was one of those cases where the tourist authorities had shoved as many people in at once to make as much money as possible) but despite this there were a few real gems.  One of these, the Karanlik Kilise (Dark Church) required an extra 8 TL on top of the 15 TL entrance fee, but it was well worth the price as it put off the shutterbugs and the money was going towards the preservation of murals.  We weren’t able to get any photos of these to prevent damage, so the pictures of the insides of the monasteries are taken from the internet (I don’t know if there are any copyright issues with this, but if there are rest assured that I am not making loads of money by writing this).  The church is called the Dark Church because it doesn’t have many windows before you get the idea that it is home to some kind of cult.

Dark Church, Goreme Open Air Museum

After leaving the museum area and walking back down towards Goreme we found another little church, the Tokali Kilise.  This one was less crowded than the others at the Open Air Museum, despite it being part of the same ticket, and had some pretty impressive frescoes.  It consisted of two churches, an old and a new, which had been constructed one on top of the other.  By now it was pretty hot and our room was available, so we made our way through Goreme to our very own fairy chimney room - the fairy chimneys are the nicknames for the rock formations in these parts.  The name comes from when the first travellers arrived in the area and saw that the strange towers of rock were inhabited and were lit up by candlelight, giving the impression that the area was full of fairies.  You can see where they are coming from.

Our Fairy Chimney

For the rest of the day we took it easy to recover from the bus journey.  The town of Goreme is the central hub for travellers to Cappadocia and is the main location of fairy chimneys.  It is home to many shops and tour groups catering for the huge volume of tourists but has managed to retain a lot of its character.  After exploring the town a little bit we headed off to walk around one of the eight major valleys that converge at Goreme.  Probably the biggest issue that a traveller can have in the town is finding a good map, as trails our poorly marked and signposts in the countryside are pretty non-existant.  As Ellie and I hadn’t quite got our bearings yet, we only had a brief foray out of the town before realising that we didn’t know where we were going and didn’t fancy getting lost on our first day.  We ate out in town in the evening before bringing some drinks back to the hostel terrace, which overlooked a lot of the town.  Its definitely a pretty special place to come.


Day Two: 'The Green Tour’

View over Cappadocia

The tourist board in Cappadocia has divided the National Park (which is pretty vast) into two areas of interest, served by two tours - the red tour to the north, around Goreme and the green tour to the south.  Much of the red tour seemed to be within walking distance and it included a visit to the Goreme Open Air Museum - it seemed a waste of money to go in there twice.  We therefore decided to do the Green Tour, which left at 9.30am and cost 60TL.  It started by driving to a viewpoint south of Goreme with views down one of the valley and it was at this point that Ellie, who had been feeling ill but tried her best to come on the tour, decided that it would be sensible for her to travel back into town.  I agreed with this and we arranged for her to get a lift to the hostel, while I carried on with the tour.  The company was even kind enough to give us half of the money back.

Inside the crowded underground city

I therefore carried on the tour by myself and next reached one of 30-odd underground cities in the region, built by early Christians to escape persecution before the religion had properly taken hold.  I had heard of these cities before I came, but its difficult to appreciate the sheer scale of them until you make your way down inside them.  The largest of them are 13 storeys deep (so essentially an underground tower block), of which only a few are open to the public due to a fear of collapses.  Once again the sheer volume of tourists made it hard to imagine what the caves had been like 'back in the day’, but the tour guide told us that the cities would have been able to hold up to 10,000 people for up to two months and included churches, meeting places, animal shelters and even a crypt.  Unfortunately, as I have alluded to, the effect was spoilt slightly by the numbers of people down there and we spent a lot of time not moving as we waited for streams of people to make their way through the tunnels that were only about waist-high.  Had something (like a cave-in) sparked panic, there would have been complete carnage and I have to say that it was pretty uncomfortable down there.

Ilhara Canyon, Cappadocia

Back in fresh air again we jumped back onto the tour bus for an hour journey to a canyon on the southern edge of Cappadocia, called the Ilhara Canyon.  On the way we passed through parched fields of grass and crops, without a fairy chimney in sight.  In the distance we could see the outlines of the three volcanoes which had created the rock features, but apart from that this area of the National Park was a lot different to the images that I had seen of it.  The canyon broke the monotonous yellow fields with a gash of green and blue.  A river, the first running water I had seen in the area, runs along the bottom and the vegetation inside seemed to be a lot healthier.  It looked a lot like the kind of valley that films show people re-starting civilization in after a nuclear apocalypse and it was the perfect place for Christians to hide in during the early days of their religion.  Several churches are built into the sides of the canyon, but we skipped most of them as the tour was behind schedule.  We had lunch (provided) in the valley at a unique restaurant that had pretty much been built in the river itself, with the water running underneath the tables and chairs.

Selime Monastery complex

Our last major stop of the tour was the Selime Cathedral at the north end of the canyon, which is one of the largest religious structures in Cappadocia.  It is surrounded by smaller churches and monasteries and has amazing views back down the canyon and over the landscape to the north.  This was probably the Cappadocia that I had pictured in my head and I am pretty sure that I heard somebody say that part of one of the Star Wars movies had been filmed here (though I’m not sure which one if this is true).  I have to say that the tour guide didn’t actually fill us in much on the history and context of the area (it was more of a 'this is so and so, go take some pictures of it’ kind of tour), but you could grasp a lot of the meaning of the area just by being there.  We now made our way back to Goreme via one last viewpoint for a panorama over 'Pigeon Valley’, where the Byzantines had kept pigeons for communication and other uses, and also at an Onyx factory where the staff made a fairly tragic attempt at getting us to spend loads of money on precious stones.  It had been a pretty good day but the main use of the tour had been to get me from A to B, rather than to be particularly informative.  I got back to the hostel again at half 6 and Ellie (who was feeling far better) and I went out to get some dinner.


Day Three: Rose, Red and Pigeon Valleys

Rose Valley with Ellie, the donkey and the old man

The eight valleys that spread out from Goreme are supposedly the best places to hike in all of Cappadocia.  The only problem is that they aren’t brilliantly signposted or mapped, not to mention the fact that the tracks come and go.  Having seen the south of the national park yesterday, it made sense to explore the north of the park around Goreme and the cheapest and most rewarding way to do this was to try our hand at following the footpaths.  The first of these, the Red and Rose valleys, were actually fairly straightforward and after walking about 2km east of Goreme we came across the start of the trail (marked by a spray painted telegraph pole).  Sitting below a tree at the start of the trail was an old man with a donkey.  He was waved at us and then offered us some peaches that he had just picked.  We sat with him for a bit and he seemed very happy to be speaking to two people from England - when we left him he gave both of us a kiss on each cheek.

Old rock houses in Cavusin

Usichar Castle

We started the trail and after about 20 minutes we looked behind us to see that the old man was coming towards us on his donkey.  We waved at him and when he came over he jumped off and insisted that Ellie got on.  As I wanted to do lots of walking today and was wary of Ellie being ill the day before, we decided to take up the old man’s offer - he was very sweet and it seemed pretty cultural to do this isolated trail on a donkey.  We didn’t see any tourists as we made our way along the Rose and Red valleys, so named because of the colour of the rocks that make up their steep cliffsides.  It was quite useful to have somebody walking with us, though it wasn’t a surprise when we got to the end of the trail and he stuck out his hand asking for money.  The 20 TL that we gave him was probably a bit steep, but he had been nice enough and had showed us where we needed to go next.  We decided to have a drink at the village of Cavusin where I taught Ellie how to play draughts, before we made our way back to Goreme for lunch.


I wasn’t quite satisfied that we had seen everything that I wanted, so having spent the morning walking in the Rose and Red valleys we got a taxi to the village of Uchisar to the north of Goreme.  The village is famous for its castle, built into a huge rock formation, which is visible across all of Cappadocia.  Having been looking at it for the last two days, I decided that I wanted to climb to the top of the castle before walking back down the Pigeon Valley to Goreme, where we would get the bus back to Istanbul.  This plan started well, and after paying the 5 TL entrance fee for the castle and climbing to the top, we got perhaps the best possible view of Cappadocia.  We managed to avoid tour groups as well, so we had the outcrop to ourselves.  We hadn’t felt that we had enough money for the hot air balloon tour, so this felt like a reasonable alternative.

View from the castle

Pigeon Valley, Cappadocia

After climbing back down from the castle all that was left for us to do was to walk along the Pigeon Valley, which links Goreme and Usichar.  Unfortunately this wasn’t quite as easy as we had hoped due to the badly marked trails.  It started off well and as one of the quieter valleys we were able to walk together by ourselves.  This solitude had a negative side however and this was that the paths weren’t well worn at all.  Pretty soon after I had spoken the fatal phrase 'its impossible to get lost in a valley, its just forwards and backwards’, we were lost and faced with a sheer drop in front of us.  It turned out that the valley itself had lots of 'steps’ cut into it, as well as several valleys within a valley.  I didn’t think it would be an issue, but we were actually running the risk of missing our bus back to Istanbul so I decided to cut our losses and we made our way out of the side of the valley and back to the main road where we got a taxi back to town.  It wasn’t the ideal way to end our time in Cappadocia, but time was tight and it was the sensible thing to do.  It also gives me an excuse to come back to this very special part of the world with a bit more time on my hands in the future.

Day One: Fish at the Galata Bridge

The impressive fish menu

Istanbul is a city that is and always will be tremendously important to me.  In 2009, a combination of inset days at school coincided with my 18th birthday and I was able to spend a four day weekend here with my family.  The weekend in question corresponded with the Muslim festival of Eid, which meant that the major shopping areas, including the Grand Bazaar and Spice Bazaar, were closed.  My plan to see the bazaars, along with the fact that Istanbul is the gateway into Europe from Asia, meant that it was going to be the switchover point between backpacking with my family and backpacking with my girlfriend.  The start of this change over was the 5 hour drive from Gallipoli, which me and my family undertook on Friday morning. The route pretty much followed the Sea of Marmara and the Dardanelles and it was a good way to appreciate the strategic value of Gallipoli, as well as some amazing views.  On the way we stopped for a break at the city of Tekirdag, where we had originally considered spending a night.  While it was a fairly nice seaside town, we are glad that we spent the extra day at Gallipoli, particularly as the journey was proving a lot shorter than we had anticipated.

We were staying at the Hotel Ambassador in the Sultanahmet district of Istanbul.  This is where we had come last time and when we checked in at about 4pm, we found that we remembered many of the staff.  We were pretty exhausted after the journey and with this being the third time Mum and Dad have come to Istanbul there was no obligation to do any sightseeing.  We therefore took our time walking down to the bridges over the Golden Horn, where (need I say it) we had come for a meal before at a fish restaurant under the Galata Bridge.  We shared a massive Scorpion Fish between us - a great way to finish the family holiday, before slowly wandering back to the hotel to have a few drinks on its amazing terrace.


Day Two: The Bazaars and Hagia Sophia

The Grand Bazaar, Istanbul

The next morning the three of us went out to visit the bazaars.  Mum and Dad hadn’t been for 20 years and my last experience of a bazaar was at Khan-El Khalili in Cairo, which was total chaos.  We were therefore all surprised to find that the Grand Bazaar was fairly quiet, hassling from shopkeepers was minimal and the clean, well ordered shops made it seem more like a reasonably classy shopping arcade rather than a chaotic bazaar. It was a far cry from what I had seen in Cairo and what my parents remembered seeing 20 years ago.  We know that it is Ramadan at the moment and therefore people aren’t out until later, but (and I know that the similarities couldn’t be more tenuous) a visit on a Saturday morning to Waitrose would be the busiest time of the entire week.  I will be coming back later in the week with Ellie and we will try and come at a different time to compare.  Our next stop was the Spice Bazaar, which is to the north of the Grand Bazaar, through a large shopping district.  The roads of the shopping district were a fair bit busier than the bazaar itself and the fact that the prices were lower might suggest that the Grand Bazaar has outpriced the locals and just become a tourist trap.  This idea was strenghtened by the fact the Spice Bazaar was a lot busier and seemed to be a lot more like the real thing than…the real thing.

The Spice Bazaar, Istanbul

Hagia Sophia, Istanbul

All the while we were strolling through the shops of Istanbul, Ellie was arriving at Ataturk Airport and with a good bit of timing we all met at the Ambassador Hotel at about the same time.  There was a two hour cross-over between Ellie’s arrival and my parents’ departure and we spent this time in Sultanahmet Park in the area between the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia.  We waved mum and dad off and then decided we had time for one site - the Hagia Sophia before everything started to close and we would start to get hungry.  The Hagia Sophia is arguably the most famous monument in Istanbul.  It was built by the Emperor Justinian in 532 AD as the grandest cathedral in Christendom and has since survived earthquakes, invasions and even a crusade by fellow Christians.  It was converted to a mosque during the Ottoman Empire and since the secularism introduced by Ataturk has become a museum.  Last time I came, Istanbul was gearing itself up to be European Capital of Culture 2010 and as a result much of the city was covered in scaffolding (story of my travels…), so it was impressive to see the inside of the dome free of construction work.  We finished with a walk down to the bridges over the Golden Horn where I had eaten dinner last night, before heading back to have a meal at the restaurant where I had my last meal as a 17 year old last time I came.

Inside Hagia Sophia, Istanbul

Day Three: The Blue Mosque and Topkapi Palace

The Blue Mosque interior

The plan for today was to start with the Blue Mosque, the blue and Muslim reflection of the Hagia Sophia on the other side of Sultanahmet Park.  The mosque is actually called the ‘Sultan Ahmed Mosque’ (Sultan Ahmed/Sultanahmet) but has got its nickname due to the heavily blue dominated interior.  It was built on the site of the old Byzantine Emperor’s Palace and was completed in 1616.  As one of the most famous (and accessible) mosques in the world, the strain from tourists is quite heavy and as result worshippers are given their own entrance and sections inside.  It is a really stunning building from the outside and with the Hagia Sophia gives Istanbul one of the most easily recognizable and dramatic skylines in the world.  The interior is equally impressive, though it is very difficult to quite capture just how blue it is in photos.

Gates of Topkapi Palace

The next place that I wanted to show Ellie was the Grand Bazaar, which I had only seen for the first time yesterday. When we arrived however it turned out to be closed - it turns out that it is closed on Sunday which I probably should have worked out.  The bazaar district is quite pleasant anyway though and we had our lunch close to Istanbul University while deciding what the alternate itinerary would be.  Looking at the 'to-see’ list we decided on the Topkapi Palace, back in the Sultanhmet area of the old town.  This palace was home to the Ottoman Sultans for 400 years of the empire and as such was once arguably the most important buildings in the world.  While the Sultans are long gone, the building remains along with a lot of Ottoman treasures and artefacts.  It cost us 20 TL to get in and would have cost us an extra 15 TL if we had gone to the Harem as well (where the Sultan actually used to live - we didn’t go in last time or this time).  The grounds and palace building are enough to dedicate an afternoon to and the treasury in particular, home to the famous Topkapi Dagger as well as hundreds of other priceless items, is enough to wow you (and make you realise why the Ottomans ended up bankrupt…).  The views over the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn are really good too, so the entrance fee is worth it just to get these unique photos back over the city.  The last room we went in was the Privy Chamber, tucked away slightly in one of the courtyards.  Contained in the chamber, as tucked away as it may be, are some of the most amazing religious objects you are ever likely to come across. In the dim light (used to protect the artefacts) the Prophet Muhammad’s cloak and sword, the Staff of Moses and the turban of Joseph.  The Sultans themselves were only allowed into the chamber on one day of the year (the 15th day of Ramadan) to see the objects so it is understandable that staff ask tourists (and Muslim pilgrims) to keep quiet as they walk round.

Inside Topkapi Palace

After finishing at the palace we grabbed our first Turkish coffee of the trip and then headed back to the hotel. At 7 we got picked up and taken to Istanbul Otogar (bus station) where we started our 12 hour journey, costing 60 TL each way, to Cappdocia.  We would be returning to Istanbul later in the week but we had taken a chunk out of the long list of sites in the city.

Having spent most of this week looking at ruins, we decided that we couldn’t drive to Istanbul without stopping at the legendary Gallipoli Peninsular.  The battles that were fought here in World War One in 1915 are a major part of British history, perhaps a turning point in world history and to Australians and New Zealanders a key part of the national psyche.  The aim had been to open up the Dardanelles and march on Istanbul, but a combination of stubborn Ottoman resistance, bad luck and bad leadership meant that after a war of attrition the soldiers of the British Empire were pushed off the little strip of land.  As fierce as the fighting was however, it is often referred to by historians as the last of the ‘gentleman wars’ where each side would treat each other with respect and dignity.  To give dad a break from driving and to secure the services of a guide, we decided to take the Gallipoli battlefields tour that was offered by Crowded House hotel.

Brighton Beach, Gallipoli

We started off at Brighton Beach, the place where the amphibious landings were supposed to take place.  Under the cover of darkness however, the boats were drifted up the coast to the little cove which was eventually nicknamed Anzac Cove (which I will come to in a bit).  As with most places in the area, the British wartime nickname has stuck and the beach does have a local name which I can’t remember.  Our tour guide, a man called Bill who is actually mentioned by name in Lonely Planet, took the chance to sit the group down and got out a map to spend 20 minutes or so explaining the general characteristics of the nine month campaign.  I’m not going to go through the history on the blog because I don’t have enough space and I don’t think I will do it justice, but if you have never heard of it, it would definitely be worth looking it up.  The main thing that we gathered from our stop at Brighton Beach was that it was a broad, flat beach which lends itself to a landing.  It was however heavily defended, so it is difficult to go through the 'what-ifs?’ for if the landings hadn’t been blown off course.

Anzac Cove, Gallipoli

Anzac Cove is only two miles up the coast, but there is a massive contrast in the terrain.  The little beach at the cove is surrounded by steep cliffs, which meant that the Australian and New Zealand troops that landed had to immediately climb up the cliffs to attack the Turkish troops that were defending them.  While the terrain is in stark contrast to Brighton Beach, so to were the defences.  At Anzac Cove, only 160 men and a machine gun post were overlooking the beaches and these were actually overcome with ease.  The main objective of the campaign, the heights of Chaunuk Bair, was only 3 miles from the beaches and within a few hours the troops had travelled 2 miles.  At this point however a young Turkish lieutenant colonel got his 160 men to lie down in the grass with fixed bayonets to give the impression that their numbers were larger.  This officer was Mustafa Kemal, later to be known as Ataturk - the founder of modern Turkey.  This bluff held the invaders up and allowed time for Turkish reinforcements to throw the Anzacs back to within a mile of the beaches, where they remained for most of the campaign.

Lone Pine Cemetary, Gallipoli

After Anzac Cove we headed up to North Beach where a large arena has been created.  The huge swell of tourists who came for the Anzac Day ceremonies a few years ago swamped the cemetaries and as a result a joint Turkish/Australian/New Zealander agreement resulted ın the constructıon of an arena where servıces can take place.  In 2015 it will be the 100th anniversary of the Gallipoli campaign and tens of thousands of Aussies and Kiwis are expected.  We had now seen all of the Anzac landing points and therefore headed inland to the heights which were so bitterly fought over.  The main Australian cemetary is called Lone Pine, so called because the intense shelling left only one tree standing.  In four days of fıghting over an area of land about the same size as a football pıtch, 7000 Australians dıed.  A soldıer took a seed from the original 'lone pine’ and the tree that now stands in the middle of the cemetary is the great grandson of that original tree.

Chunuk Bair, Gallipoli

From here we passed several trenches on our way up to Chunuk Bair.  One of the cemetaries is called “Johnston’s Jolly” as the relationship between the Australians and Turks here was particularly jovial - the Aussies lacked tobacco for their cigarettes while the Turks lacked paper and as a result they were always throwing supplies across the trenches to each other.  It was here that our guide showed us a particularly striking bit of war propaganda which encouraged men to sign up for a 'free trip to Great Britain and Europe’.  On our way to the summit we passed by an Ottoman cemetary.  While the soldiers are buried in separate cemetaries, there is a feeling that they are all equal at Gallipoli and this attitude is best summed up by Ataturk’s message to the mothers of foreign soldiers, inscribed in a memorial, which says that ’your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace, after having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well’.  We were now approaching the end of the tour and the last stop was Chunuk Bair itself, where there is a major New Zealander cemetary.  The summit was finally captured by Kiwi troops, but it was only held for two days after fierce fighting.  Chunuk Bair is to New Zealanders what Lone Pine is to Australians.

The tour was now over and we headed back to Eceabat, stopping off for some complimetary watermelon from a fruit stall on the way back to the hotel.  It had been a really good tour and I think it was far better for us to have a tour than to try and drive around the sites ourselves.  Sometimes it is better to join the group and get a guide than to travel totally independantly and this was the case today.

The Tetrapylon, Aphrodisias

Starting at Pammukale, our goal for the day was to reach Bergama which is back near the coast, north of Izmir.  The journey was quite hefty and we wanted to break it up a bit with some of the extensive ruins in the area, which left us with the choice of taking the mountain pass via the ruins at Sardis, or taking the motorway via the ruins at Aphrodisias.  After a lot of deliberating we decided to go what turned out to be the better roads AND the better ruins by choosing the latter of the two.  None of us had heard of Aphrodisias before we had passed it on our way to Pammukale and we decided to look it up in Lonely Planet.  The review was extremely positive - so positive that we tried to fit it into our schedule.  After a standard Turkish hostel breakfast of boiled eggs, salad and bread we drove the hour journey back the way we had come from Selcuk, to Aphrodisias.

After a breakfast described by Lonely Planet as ‘gutbusting’, we packed up our stuff and left Selcuk to head east to the town of Pammukale.  This was one of the few sights on our Turkish tour that mum and dad didn’t go to on their honeymoon so it was a bit of a mystery for all of us.  The journey wast was pretty painless and took about 2 and a half hours - though there was an amusing moment where dad yanked out something that was gangling around the gear stick and threw it at me in a 'why did you put that there?’ kind of way.  It was, to our amusement, the poorly positioned car keys.

The path up the cliff face

Our hostel of choice in Pammukale was the Artemis Yoruk Hotel.  The town is fairly small - approaching village proportions, so nothing is very far away.  The main attraction of Pammukale is part natural and part historical.  An interesting bit of chemistry in the soils near the village, combined with the location of natural hot springs, have created a vast outpouring of water filled with calcium calcite.  The reaction with oxygen when it reaches the surface and falls over the rocks is that they are turned white and the whole cliff beside Pammukale looks like somebody has just dropped white paint onto it.  We had lunch in a cafe at the foot of the cliffs and decided that the steep footpath up the side of the cliff face must be one of the most barren and exposed we had ever seen.  We therefore decided to swim at the hostel pool for a few hours while we waited for the hottest part of the day to end.

The ruins at Hierapolis

When we got to the start of the footpath however, it became clear that the cliff is nothing like as exposed as we originally thought.  This was mainly due to the fact that water was gushing down the hill from the springs and the footpath was essentially a shallow, hugely refreshing, stream.  We had to take our shoes off and were able to paddle in the artificial pools that had been created all the way up.  The artificial pools had naturally filled up with silt and people were covering themselves in the mud to make the most of its healing powers.  There seemed to be a lot of fat tourbus tourists who were hoping the mud would help them shed 50 pounds.  The top of the footpath opened up onto the cliff top.  The path itself, as amazing as it was, was only the entrance and it was at the top that you could properly appreciate what had made the site a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  On one hand it had Hierapolis, a Roman city that had been built as a healing centre beside the natural springs.  On the other hand it had the Travertines, the natural version of the calcite pools.  Its one of those wonderful places that is best described by pictures.  The ruins were remarkably intact considering that they were a bit of a side show to the Travertines.

Antique Pool

After spending several hours looking around, we headed for the Antique Pool for a swim.  This pool had been built to recreate the Roman pools that had once existed at the site and were supposedly full of more healing water.  There were changing rooms and lockers available on site so we got changed and then went for a swim in the 35 degree water.  The pools contained broken columns and bits of rock and were pretty shallow in places, which meant that we ended up doing more crawling than swimming.  By the time that we got out of the pools the sun was starting to go down and it was getting pretty cool, which made the walk back down to the town really pleasant.  We managed to pretty much perfectly time our descent with that of the sun and as we reached the town, the sun had just gone behind the mountains.  It had been a pretty amazing day really and I can say that it is unique amongst my travel experiences.  It is well worth combining Pammukale with a trip to Ephesus, just for something a bit different to ruins.

The Travertines, Pamukkale