To the plane we go!
Back to Istanbul in no time to meet up with our tour, and Courtney is the only American in a group of Aussies and of course our Turkish tour guide. Everyone asks Courtney and I how we know each other, and when we tell them that we just met last week in Turkey, no one can believe it. I guess an overnight bus right really lends itself to some hard core bonding. We do a guided walking tour around Istanbul, do a bit of shopping in the Spice Market and the Grand Bazaar, where aggressive and pushy aren't strong enough adjectives.
Group dinner
The next morning, Courtney and I head to Basilica Cistern, an undergound city in Istanbul. It's incredible! There's rows of pillars coming out of the water holding up the vaulted ceilings. There's also two giant medusa heads that came from Egypt. They're huge, and I have no idea how they got them down there. The afternoon was a 5.5 hour bus ride that took us to Eceabat, a sleepy town compared to Istanbul. Tourism I'm sure is their main attraction, but I bet there's as many stray cats and dogs as there are people there.
In the Basilica Cistern
Basilica is the starting framework of the church, and Cistern is where water is kept.
(Oh, have I forgot to mention the strays all over Turkey?? The cats sit around when you're eating dinner waiting for your scraps, it's quite disgusting. The dogs are a bit cuter, but they're still pretty dirty. We had a couple kittens in our room in Cappadocia, sneaking in through our open window with no screens to commendere the bread and cheese I snuck from breakfast. They were a bit cuter since they were kittens, but pretty gross none the less)
The kittens getting at courtneys cheese
Most of our Day 2 in Turkey was spent traveling (Our actual touring has really slowed since we started this "Active" Tour) and we watch Gallipoli (with Mel Gibson 30 years or so ago) after dinner.
Anzac Cove....Hiking and later snorkeling here
Courtney was reading over our itinerary and I laughed out loud when she tried pronouncing it (gally-polly was what she said but guh-lip-uh-lee is the correct way). Funniest moment on this day tour was when Courtney asked "Who are the Anzacs?" and she got laughed at by everyone. She knew the question was going to be a stupid one so I tried to pull the tourguide off to the side to ask him privately, but she wasn't quiet enough because everyone laughed in amazment when she asked.
Silliness on the beach
We hiked the state park and learned all about what happened at Gallipoli. There are tons of Anzac cemetaries and memorials all over the park, which I think is an amazing thing for one country to have memorials for other countries that were at war with them. These memorials are beautiful and all in English, so that it can be read by the Aussies and Kiwis. Lone Pine was the big Australian Memorial, several Turkish Memorials, too. The views as we climbed up the mountain was incredible, and it was hard to imagine such brutal battles being fought there.
Nek Cemetary....AMAZING views!
We then rode down and snorkeled Anzac cove over a sunken battle ship. Pretty cool!
That night, we took the Ferry over to Canakkle to check out the Trojan Horse that they used in the movie Troy.
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