Way finding games

Assos to Tekirdag

Wednesday, June 10.

We have had a very restful night at the Biber Evi at Assos. Our hostess has a beautifully presented breakfast ready for us at 8am. All the usual Turkish things are there but without the rather questionable pink sausage that seems to appear every time like corn flakes. We have become very fond of the goat’s cheeses of which there seem to be a number of flavours. She has even pealed the cucumbers and tomatoes. There are also some dried fruits and walnuts. We are the only guest breakfasting. 

While the day looks brighter than yesterday, I make use of the early light for some more images. We don’t want to burn daylight.

Essentially this is a rural village.

Our hosts suggest we might stroll up to the Temple just around the corner from the Mosque. Our car is packed so we might as well get up a little higher and take in more of the beautiful views from here.

The little stroll turns out to be quite a stretch to the top. There are some VERY old ruins of what apparently was one of the most highly regarded temples to Athena dating from at least the days of the Parthenon. There too Athena was No1. Not much remains but the outlook certainly gave the deity prominent exposure. Even deities come and go but stones remain longer.

It is interesting that the realm for the gods and deities for most cultures is the sky, the heavens. Perhaps one partial exception are Australian Aboriginals. Their spirits also roam the heavens but their sacred places are not usually on high ground but at landscapes imbued with special qualities. The Christians and Moslems still place their sacred spaces on the highest ground available, as if to prod the heavenly realm, and so did the ancients. At Assos, Athena would have had one of the best views in the classical world.

It is not difficult to loose your way in streets like these.

 To describe the village quaint might be considered patronising. It reminds us very much of hill villages in Portugal. The local stone and Roman pattern roof tiles are just about the only material used. Even the road is paved with cobbles of varying sizes. Because one building looks much like another along the winding streets, we loose our way. However, at least the minaret is useful in way finding. Our host apologised for the prayer call racket which he feels Turkey can do without. It is indeed very loud because the minaret is almost right next to the guesthouse.

Athena's Temple is about the centre of the map.

We pass a map showing a track leading down to the water and the tiny harbour. We are in two minds whether to go down or not but acknowledge that we should as we are unlikely to be here again soon. It is a tiny pocket size piece of protected water with lots of tea houses and no people. It is no doubt just before the holiday season. We wonder whether it is just the mere proximity to water that attracts them because there is no beach.

The way back to the village is certainly a hike with a load. The donkeys would have worked overtime. It is easy in a car today even if getting out of second gear is not possible.

Just as the route of our arrival here was uncertain, so too there is some doubt about which direction out of the village will take us to our next destination. We ask for some local directions along the way but it seems that by the wave of the hands, it does not matter. We will get out one way or another. It is at times a  tightly winding single lane track. Just as well the road holding and cornering of the little Renault Clio is exemplary. Wherever you point it, it sticks to the line without effort. It hurtles along at a willing and amazing 2000rpm @ 115kph. This track eventually takes us to more traffic and towards Canakkale where we hope to catch the ferry across the Dardanelles and the European side of Turkey and then on to Istanbul. One reason for choosing this route is that the international airport is on the European side of the Bosphorus which would avoid driving through the centre of Istanbul.

Once we can pick up speed, we move along. There is road construction of quite a major scale but most of the way is good. We soon loose sight of water and zoom along gently rolling countryside which seems to grow grain crops, now beginning to turn to gold, alternating with various shades of green – no doubt a rotation crop.

As we motor along at good speed through rolling country of fields of grains and olive groves, there is a sign to the left saying Troy. Our Assos host mentioned that, if we are not completely 'ruined out' and are doing good time, a visit to this legendary site could be quite interesting. Whatever the fables may be, there has been a settlement, and at times a very prosperous one, in this location for a few thousand years.

If phenomenon of Chinese whispers is real then who knows what the stories might have been. However, for those who are not Classical scholars, here is what is at the archeological site.

A tremendous amount of excavation has been done of what appears to have been a  layered city that ebbed and flowed over a few thousand years.

There is evidence that at one time, the Temple of Athena was a centrepiece of the city.

The beautiful and impressive ceiling of the temple was not just layered cut slabs of marble. The coffers were carved out of individual blocks of marble. How did they get them in place?

How amazingly accurate and true is this carving without machine tools!

The foundation layers are said to belong to the Troy of 2500BC. Mud brick building as  seen here is almost as old as humans built anything at all.

Troy, as most ancient cities, was built on high ground. Over the years the sea has receded, as at Ephesis, and now there are fields where once there was a harbour.

As we leave this very ancient site and conjure the ghosts of its many inhabitants, we challenge our own sense of importance and place in the human continuum. But philosophising will not get us to the next destination. 

The not very pleasant or welcoming city of Canakkale.

One could say that the roads are generally extremely well signed. We truly do not need our GPS. Without doubt, we soon are at Canakkale. There are even unmistakable signs 'Karferi' with a small boat icon to lead us to the wharf and on to the boat. It costs us a modest 35tl for the car and passengers. The crossing does not take more than about half an hour through beautiful aqua water. Once we are across, the challenging decision is whether to detour to the Australian sacred ground of Gallipoli (Gelibolu to the Turks) or not. It is actually quite a long way on the other side of the peninsula and in the opposite direction to where we need to go. We accept the reality that we are running short of time. It is early afternoon and we still have well over 100km to go. As we drive past a Turkish memorial of the Gallipoli battles, we pay our respects to all those who were sacrificed by their various leaders. One thing we learned was that unlike our understanding that the Gallipoli landing was from the Dardanelles straights, it was in fact from the ocean side of the peninsula. It is all a sad and tragic story.

Canakkale from the waterside.

The car ferry to take us across the Dardanelles is off.

The brilliantly coloured Dardanelles.

On board informal English lesson.

The Gallipoli (Gallibolu) side.

We pay our respects to the fallen Turks.

Memorial forest over the battle fields.

Cultivated landscape along most of the peninsula.

As we want to make progress for our last overnight stay at Tekirdag, we have decided to spare lunch for a good dinner and stretch ourselves out with an ice-cream and some fruit. It is often said that the relative cost of living in various places around the world could be measured around the price of a Big Mac. The Magnum is almost universally in the same category. For what it is worth, the Turkish Magnums, every bit as good as ours, cost 3tl (about A$1.50).

Some of Tekirgad near the hotel but not really representative.

We have made an internet booking at 59 Hotel. Why this strange name, who knows. We have an address but we keep our fingers crossed just how we are going to target it. As we approach the outskirts, Lois sees a sign to the right of the main road ‘59’. Perhaps that is a weird name of a part of the town. With little opportunity to argue at 100kph, I swing to the right. Once we are off the main strip, it is obvious we have made a bad decision. However, there happens to be a hotel just there. I unpack my laptop to show the booking confirmation with the full address and march into the hotel lobby. No one speaks a word of English. The one message I get is that I have to go back to the main road and further into town. Their gestures and signs were pretty no specific which convinces me that we are still quite a long way away.

We drive into the middle of the town, by the sea. The traffic is heavy with what at this moment seems with few rules. I have to pull off into a ‘park’ and ask for help. I just pull up, double park and turn the hazard lights on. Isn’t that what they are for? More gestures and a lot of world without much understanding, certainly on my part. However, what seems clear is that we should be on the other side of this main road. OK. We rejoin the heavy traffic and take a left. But we cannot keep driving around blindly looking for ’59 Hotel’. I pull up again, get my laptop out and flash the address to a few more people with a despairing look on my face. Someone reads my dilemma. He has a smart phone, looks up the address on his map and shows me where we are. This is not all that much help except that at least I am pointed in the right direction. I need to go on and then somewhere throw a left. There is little else but to keep going or I will cause traffic havoc.

A few streets further down, I do my helpless trick again. This time, it is pointed out to me that our hotel is just a few blocks ahead, then left and it will be right there on the right. It seems we have nearly made it. Suddenly, all traffic is diverted because of a road closure. There is a lot of noise and commotion ahead. Why is someone doing this to us. There is little else but to go with the stream, ducking and waving, squeezing through narrow lanes and one way alleys. In the meantime, I have made a mental map of where I think we should be and try to maintain my bearings as the flow takes us what seems to be further away from our intended destination.

One more desperate stop. I feel a bit stupid running up and down the street waving an open laptop around. However, it turns out that that the location of our lodgings is in the cross street just ahead and then left. I do the turn but traffic almost stops because of the road closure further down town. As we crawl, suddenly, there is a sign 59 Hotel. We have made it except there is nowhere to park and the street is barely two cars wide. As we are now within spitting distance of our destination and we are not moving, Lois jumps out to report our ‘arrival’ at reception and call for emergency help with the car. Sure enough, while I have not moved at all, the manager races up and tells me to take a turn into the next street on the right. We block the traffic while the luggage is unloaded. In the meantime, the manager has summonsed one of his assistants with no English to jump into the car with me to take me to the hotel’s ‘parking area’. By my reckoning, we do another 360 through a number of one way lanes I would never have otherwise attempted to get into and seemingly a semi derelict underground space to leave the car. To my relief, there are other cars too. My guide jokes and jabbers away as we return to the hotel, trying to impress landmarks to me so that I can get back to the car. I don't think I will be doing that tonight. I am completely lost. The hotel will just have to get the car back to us to load or they don’t get their money.

In the meantime, I discover that

1.    1.The commotion and street closure in the centre of town was for a big parade for the Cherry Festival which is this week. We did have to strike it!

2.     2. Lois is comfortably settled into our quite spacious and pleasant hotel room, connected to the internet, while I have been around the merry-go-round a few times.

View from our hotel window.

We are here, booked in, registered and finally all is well. Next is to find our main meal of the day – and we know we are ready for it. Quite blindly, we wander into the centre of town a few minutes away and find ourselves in a neat and tidy upstairs dining room. The food is the usual Turkish wholesome and uncomplicated cooking that we did not think was worthy of recording. The locals sure like their bread. Yesterday’s bread is often put into the next day’s meal as is with our Kofta and tomato sauce. It looks bigger than it is because it is bulked up with pieces of it. But we don’t complain. Do what the locals do which also includes having a drinking style of yoghurt – nice. That is what we used to do with sour milk way back in Germany.

Back in our room for another mail check, a few notes of what has been a unremarkable day with a colourful ending and bedding down for the last time in Turkey. It is hard to believe that the next night will be high in the sky.