Turkey

We started our tour of Turkey in Çanakkale, which we used as a base to visit Troy and Gallipoli. Arriving in Turkey meant getting accustomed to yet another currency (our 8^th for the trip). We had a very funny incident with a shopkeeper who we thought was asking 61 Lira (about $50) for our little bundle of goodies. After some negotiations where neither side could understand the other we finally established it was 6 Lira (about $5)!!

Troy was a little underwhelming. Our tour guide showed us through the ruins of the different levels of cities that had been built there over the centuries, however, it was quite hard to imagine the cities as they were.

Susan in the Trojan horse at Troy

Our Gallipoli tour was great. Our guide was a young Turkish guy who was very enthusiastic about his job and Gallipoli. He told stories from both sides and helped us to imagine what occurred. We both had feelings of sadness as we walked through the numerous cemeteries, but we also experienced a sense of pride being Australian and to have some idea of what these soldiers experienced.

Bullets that hit each other across the trenches - this is apparently a very rare occurrence, and is indicative of the volume of bullets exchanged between trenches, that were at times only 8 metres apartDain walking through one of the cemeteriesLone Pine Cemetary

We headed back to Istanbul on another 6 hour bus trip. We stayed in Sultanahmet, the old part of the city, nice and close to some of the big attractions. During our stay we visited the Blue Mosque (a huge mosque tiled with blue mosaics inside), Topkapi Palace (where the Ottoman Sultans lived), Aya Sofya (a church that was converted to a mosque that was converted to a museum) and we went a bit nuts shopping at the Grand Bazaar, a huge covered complex with over 4,000 shops.

Us at the Blue MosqueDain checking out the different spices on offer at the Spice MarketBasilica Cistern - An underground water holding built in the 6^th century

Hot and cold

The colder weather in Edinburgh was a bit of a shock but also quite a relief from the heat of summer. We busied ourselves with exploring the city to keep warm (and rediscovered our hot chocolate and amarula mix too). We visited Edinburgh Castle, the royal yacht Britannia and climbed up to Holyrood Park.

A view of Edinburgh from the castle

We booked ourselves onto a day tour which took us to Glencoe, Fort William and up to Loch Ness. No sightings of Nessie, but an amazing day.

Susan with Hamish the heilan’ coo, not sure which one’s which though.

Dain at Urquhart Castle

It was a huge change in scenery and temperature when we landed on the Greek island of Crete. We were swiftly taken to our hotel in a Mazda6 taxi :)

After a couple of days, we cruised over to Santorini where our time was monopolised by lounging around on the beach and eating. We managed to drag ourselves away from the beach for one day to explore the towns of Thira and Oia and watch an amazing sunset. I’ll let the photos tell the story.

Thira
Sunset at Oia
Susan at Perissa Beach

We now find ourselves in Turkey. It certainly is a fascinating place. We made our way to Çanakkale by bus from Istanbul, a six hour journey! We’re looking forward to our tours of Troy and Gallipoli before heading back to Istanbul.