Turkey (V)

Day 7: Izmir to Bergamon to Canakkale (by tour bus)

We made our way from Izmir to Bergamon, where the ancient acropolis of Bergamon is situated on a mountain. The Greek word "acropolis"means high ("acro") city ("polis").

Because we were visiting a high city, we had to take a cable car to reach the city. From there we had a splendid view of the modern city of Bergamon.

above left: it was extremely windy that day, with some drizzle, and the cat was so cute! I think it puffed up all it's hair to keep warm, and had to squint its eyes agains the biting wind. 

The Tree in the centre is known as Satan's seat - used to be the altar where the people of Bergamon worshipped Zeus, so Christians called it Satan's seat.

In many of the cities that we visited, we saw many great architecture, the cities buildings were all made from stone, rarely were they made with wood, and most of the times we did not see any thing used to secure the rocks in place. As you can see from the arch, it's because the rocks were packed so tightly together that they cannot move out of place - they keep each other in place.

The photos above show a hallway of arches, and everyone wanted a photo with the arches, and it turned almost into a game. One group would take a photo in front of the arch hallway, and then turn and run down the hallway (far left photo) while the next group got in place for their photo, when they were ready, one of the group members would yell "no, no, no" meaning, "no, stop running, get out of the way, we're going to that the photo" and everyone who was running would slip to the side (like the far right photo) and hide. But some misunderstood and heard "go, go, go" instead of "no, no, no"....

 above: just some sights along the road

below: at Asklepieion - a medical/healing centre close to the city of Bergamon, 

the symbol of snake is always linked with medicine and doctor

 above: lunch

After lunch we made our way to the city of Troy, a stop before we got to our final destination, the city of Canakkale next to the Sea of Marmara. 

It was so exciting to go to Troy, since we've all heard the story about the battle that ensued because of Helen of Troy. Although there's no relics of the wooden horse, there was one that was reconstructed in the  same style as described.

This ancient city was discovered by a German - Heinrich Schliemann, who had always dreamed of uncovering this city since he was a little boy. He because an archeologist just because he wanted to find Troy because he had heard that there were many treasures to be found.

View from inside the horse

The city of Troy was discovered to have different cities built on top of each other. What happened was that when one city fell, the new city would be constructed on top of the old one. When we walked around the site, we were able to see the different levels of cities each using different styles and material for building.

above left: the tall city walls of King Priam (father of Prince Paris who kidnapped Helen)

above right: see the (little) mound in the distance? This is believed to be a burial mound and Achilles may have been buried there... 

above left: the city gate was on the side and a very narrow space, this prevented attackers from using large trunks of wood to knock down the city door

below left: Level 5 of the city of Troy

below right: the only path into the city centre where the royals lived, it was here that the German archeologist - Heinrich Schliemann, discovered a treasure box of jewels and gold, which he secretly brought back to Germany

above left: level 2 - this level is made of red soil bricks, and easily destroyed by water, so that's why there are rocks on the bottom layer to avoid rain water running through, and also a tarp has now been constructed by archeologists to protect it from falling rain.

above right: level 7, a series of trenches from the 7th city layer known today as the Schliemann Trenches

In this photo you can see the different city layers marked

After we finished with our quick tour of Troy, we made our way into the city of Canakkale. As we got closer and closer to Istanbul and Europe, I noticed that most things are more sophisticated and modern. See below our hotel lobby (left), the view from my hotel room we can see the sea of marmara (middle), and the dishes we had at our dinner (right) - although they look good, the taste is not that great. They tried to do some fancy thing with their Turkish food, but the combination didn't really work... :P