Blue Mosque, Troy and Cannakkale, Saturday, May 24

So I combined Thursday traveling with my first day of the tour in Istanbul. I'm now on day two as we are leaving. Two Anadian woman in the group from New Brunswick walked from our hotel over the bridge to the other side of the Golden Horn. It's called that because the piece of land that we're on is kind of shaped like a horn and the water turns golden at sunset. This other side is still in Europe. You have to cross the larger bridge to cross into Asia. We'll do that tomorrow when we cross the Dardanelles. The ladies and I found a little fisherman spot across the bridge for tea. and then a great restaurant at a hole in the wall that Rick Steve's recommended. Carolyn and Ellen are retired civil service workers in Canada.



After we checked out at 8 a.m.we headed back up the hill to visit the Blue Mosque which is only blue on the inside because of the tiles and stained glass that is all mostly blue. We all removed our shoes and carried them around in plastic bags as we exited out the other side. This is the fourth highest dome after St. Peter's in Rome, St. Paul in London and the Duomo in Milan, all of which I've been in! I think Mary, Betty and I were actually in this one because it was free, unlike Topkapi Palace which was not, and I don't remember that at all. We had so little money in 1965 that we mostly walked around places on the outside only. But still we covered 28 countries in that year, including stopping for four months in Munich to work so I had a ticket home!! Seems like only yesterday!



We then had a long bus ride through the rolling, lush countryside to the ferry where we crossed the Dardanelles. We passed near where the battle of Gallipoli was fought for ten months in the First World War, then Australian and New Zealand forces (ANZAC) fighting for the British Empire tried to capture the Dardanelles and Bosporus straight to give Russia access from the Black Sea. They failed and the Ottomans under Kemel Ataturk defeated them and that was the start of Turkey's independence movement. Ataturk made amazing changes and really helped the country turn around. We'll learn more when we visit his mausoleum in Ankara.



We moved on to Troy, the supposedly mythological place where the Greek Spartans defeated the Trojans, but,then,a German guy named Schliemann became obsessed with the story of the,  lliad in the late 19th century? He made money in the gold rush in America and spent it searching for Priam's treasure! He wasn't that interested in archeology but proved this was the ancient of a real battle. There were 9 consecutive layers of cities on this same site. And he did some back and find a treasure of gold but it was from an earlier period AND he had made an agreement with the Ottomans to split the find in half but never did! There was the obligatory wooden horse but I only took a picture. The battle was really about power, Homer just made up a good story sticking Helen in as the motive.