Paying our respects on the peninsula

 Friday 13 September

An early start with our luggage loaded on to our 30-seater coach (so plenty of room for us 10!) by our taciturn driver Mustafa who speaks no English, gets a lot of calls en route and like our guide smokes at every opportunity. But he doesn't complain and just gets on with it so no grumbles there.

It takes ages getting out of Istanbul at that time of day but eventually we're on the motorway and an early pitstop is at a petrol station which, apparently typically as it's some kind of civil requirement, has the best and cleanest loos I have ever seen.

We're on our way out to the Gallipoli peninsula (here spelt Galibilou), scene of course of an horrendous WW1 campaign where the Turks (pre-republic) sided with Germany, and so the allied forces determined to capture the Dardanelles as the route to Istanbul, the Bosphorus and beyond ensured shipping routes into central Europe and Russia beyond. It was a miserable failure at enormous cost to both sides, and the Turkish nation following the victory of Ataturk in 1923 determined to memorialise all those who lost their lives, regardless of nation. Ataturk (obviously a Turkish icon and the founder of the republic, though he wasn't all good), wrote this incredibly moving letter to those from overseas who were bereaved.

There are several memorials - the cemeteries contain stones inscribed "believed to be buried here" and it's incredibly moving as the setting is so very beautiful (though it had recently been blighted by forest fires) and it's clear that the Turks will never ever forget, because literally hundreds of thousands of Turks, ANZAC, British and Indian forces perished in trench warfare. One Turkish regiment, the 57th, was completely wiped out and now the Turkish army has no 57th regiment out of respect.

Many of the trenches and tunnels have been preserved and restored - and the fact that they fought only 8m apart makes you realise that once you were on the front line, you didn't have a prayer. This has been immortalised in this sculpture on the sea front at Eceabat.

We'd visited or seen several of the memorials along the way before catching the ferry to take us over to the Asian side (only a very small percentage of Turkiye is in Europe) and I'd felt quite emotional despite having no family connection to the Gallipoli campaign (and despite a briefly scary moment when a random, very large stray dog decided to leap up on me and several other people near one of the beaches). 

We're spending a lot more time than we expected on the coach on this trip - the distances are pretty huge and it was close to 7pm by the time we got to our beach resort hotel outside Cannakale, and too close to sunset to do other than look at the sea and sand. (Randomly, the property opposite the hotel kept chickens and roe deer in a compound - thankfully they're pretty quiet at night time, and the chickens don't get going too early either.)

After a very indifferent buffet dinner  with no wine available I returned to my room where I was unable to get stable WiFi to keep up this blog, so I retired early to my extremely hard bed having used my pretty grotty bathroom as we had another 8am departure - back on the bus!

Among the masses at the mosques

 Thursday 12 September

A good old "eyes bigger than my belly" breakfast in the hotel before meeting with our guide, Gokce. The single room deprivation scenario rumbled on through the day with some help from her - eventually my room was made into a twin as there was no room at the inn for Dee. I managed to negotiate a refund for the single supplement paid after to and fro on WhatsApp with the tour company whenever I got access to WiFi (including, most unexpectedly, during a visit to Hagia Sofia, a Christian church turned into a mosque with elements of both religions displayed on the walls and ceilings.)

Our tour group is thankfully a tiny group of ten, nice enough, all English-speaking people but I don't think we're about to make new friends for life (they make me feel at bit racy in comparison). 

We all crammed on to a tram for three stops and spent the morning at the Topkapi Palace, my favourite place of the day today (not least because I wasn't required to wear a headscarf). There's a lot to see, including some magnificent jewellery, costumes, and inevitably beautiful tiles and fountains, and the Harem is a fascinating, intiricate building with what seems to be an endless maze of rooms. 

We moved on in the midday sun to Hagia Sofia, where non-Muslims are restricted to the "mixed" upper gallery and where all women have to cover their heads, legs and shoulders. 

The frescoes are beautiful in a faded kind of way, and imho demonstrate far more artistry than the Christian mosaics - but if you ever read my blog about the mosque/church in Cordoba from my visit there last year, you'll know my opinion on Islamic vs Christian art! There were many men particiapting in the lunchtime prayers beneath us - it just felt a bit surreal being among masses of tourists snapping away and watching them kneel and pray from above. 

We then found a little outdoor cafe for some lunch and with the help of WiFi I continued my battle with EE concerning my non-existent roaming, again struggling to make them understand via messaging what the problem was and that I didn't need to be told for the nth time what calls were going to cost me which was pretty redundant information for someone not actually connected to a phone network. Eventually it was resolved by a helpful person who actually read what I wrote and 24 hours later, hey presto I was connected.

After lunch we headed for the Blue Mosque, again a small group among many - not sure I've ever felt quite such a tourist since visiting the Vatican. Once again, on with the headscarf and this time off with the shoes which are not permitted to touch the carpet. Again, swarms of people taking selfies and pictures of the beautiful blue tiles, columns, vaulted arches and stained glass felt incongruous and somewhat intrusive while a number of Muslim ladies were trying to focus on their prayers behind a very low screen.

We then visit the site of the Roman Hippodrome nearby - so nothing Roman to be seen, you just have to imagine the shape of the race track, and there are various obelisks down the centre of "the spine". 

We head wearily back to the hotel on packed tram, where we then moved Dee's stuff into my room where a nice complimentary fruit plate was waiting for us thanksverymuch. 

We wash and brush up out for dinner and after much toing and froing (if you've got no mobile roaming data because it's hideously expensive to use Google maps outside Europe), we find the elusive restaurant at top of a building containing a very downmarket shopping centre (almost dragged in by a little man touting outside, who found himself unexpectedly pushing at an open door). It has nice little terrace, with basic but good food despite my misgivings about a menu with photos. We were very intrigued by a serves two casserole that arrived at the next table which was actually on fire - it made crepe suzette look like a slight smoulder.  Again, wine's a small fortune so we stick with Efes beer which has the advantage of filling me up more quickly. 

We go back to hotel, take a quick squiz at the spa which I resolve to visit next week when we return for a night as it will be mainly free. We chat up the hotel clerk to ensure good rooms on that return, with Dee achieving an upgrade by saying she's providing positive feedback about the very sweet young man with the almost-perfect self-taught English. It's an early night for an early start with an 8am departure.

Trouble in Turkiye

Probably the worst start ever to a holiday. The journey to Heathrow is ok but I'm delayed going through Security as my hand luggage is searched without reason (of course, it's September 11th). Having boarded the plane, we then sit on the tarmac for 90 minutes beyond flight time as there's some "non-structural damage to the body of the aircraft that the engineers need to sign off as safe". This ultimately means we land 2 hours late, and as I had stupidly opted for an aisle seat in the back row, I spend a large proportion of the flight having people's groins or bums in my face as they queue for the lav. Thankfully, I had bought a sandwich at Pret as by the time the cabin crew get to the back row they have run out of sandwiches. 

On arrival, I have no phone network and have to run around sorting out wifi so that I can try to message the the tour company. I had informed them of the delay but there's no-one there to meet us, though once I can access WhatsApp it turns out that two different people came along too early. Eventually Emre, a charming student, turns up and after about 40 minutes we're then on a comfortable posh people carrier wending our way through the traffic to the old city Crowne Plaza. The street outside is being dug up and we pick our way across rubble to gain access.

And then we discover we haven't been booked into separate rooms despite exorbitant surcharges, resulting in hasty consultation of paperwork and frantic phone calls. While we wait for this to be sorted out, we retire to the bar for a glass of wine only to discover that a bottle of reasonable stuff is going to cost us the best part of £70, so we settle for a couple of G&Ts and some mixed nuts instead (now ravenous!).

Rooms sorted, at least for tonight, and after dumping bags we venture out avoiding the builders' diggers and lorries to find a recommended restaurant that doesn't seem to exist where it's supposed to, so we settle for an inferior hotel restaurant with a very sweet waiter but equally inferior mezze and a pleasant bottle of wine which still costs us £37.

And still, I have no phone network despite having logged in for roaming twice. I log in on the hotel wifi and attempt to speak to EE without success and will have to try again in the morning, plus spend a bloody fortune on data, most of which I won't need.

 Tomorrow is another day, mooching around Istanbul with the help of a guide, but I do hope it's a better one - please!