Marmara and the Aegean

This afternoon we arrived in Behrmakale, where the ruins of Assos are found. Offshore six miles is the island of Lesbos, in Greece. You can see Lesbos in the photo above, through the columns at the temple of Assos!


This is Ismail, our personal archeologist for the day. He gave us a guided tour through what seemed like a small excavation called Troas (sounds like Troy, but is actually a few miles south of the famous Trojan city). Troas is the Turkish name for a Roman city of about six square km called Alexandra.


This is the entrance ramp to the gates of Troy VI (Homer's Troy). I took many photos of this excavation and enjoyed it thoroughly.

This photo shows the Dardanelles from the Anatolian (Asian) side. Hellespont is a few miles to the southwest (left). These straits are less than 4,000 feet wide at their narrowest point (shown in the image). It is amazing to imagine the vast number of ships that pass through these waters on the way between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. It's also amazing to think of the battles that have been fought to control these waters, and the books (back to Homer's Iliad) that have been written featuring this place!

These are the deckhands on the ferry between Kilitbahir/Gallipoli (Europe) and Canakkale (Asia). I thought they were very much like the deckhands we have on Whidbey Island!

After departing Istanbul, our first stop was the battlefields of Gallipoli on the Gelibolu peninsula. It was raining most of the day, so I was wet and cranky, but this is a soft shot of Anzac Cove (using my sawed-off Holga lens on the Nikon digital back), where the Turks held off the Australians, New Zealanders and the French Allies to hold the Dardanelles and the Sea of Marmara.