Gelibolu on Wednesday

Between the jetlag and thoughts of a tour with no luggage I did not sleep well, but at 7am (just in the nick of time) I got the call that my luggage had arrived!  I had time to put on some pants (it's colder here than anticipated), find socks and shoes, and then return my luggage to the lobby to be put on the bus.  After breakfeast we spent most of the morning driving to Gallipoli (in Turkish it's Gelibolu).

Once out of Istanbul we drove for over an hour along the Sea of Marmara. No road trip is complete without snacks, so at our bathroom stop I bought some Canpare (vanilla cookies with a hazelnut creme filling, i.e. delicious) and Susamli çubuk (sesame sticks).

At our lunch stop in Gallipoli, Frank and Marcia (the former yinzers) took me under their wing, so to speak (they had sat in front of me on the bus) so we walked to a little cafe and had toasties and coffee.  My first Turkish Coffee was not a winner, rather bitter and they never put milk in their coffee.  It was rather cold and windy -- I did not pack appropriately it would seem -- but thankfully no rain.  Our final stops of the day were at the Gallipoli Cemeteries; overseen by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission there are markers and memorials all over the peninsula.

We stopped first at Ari Burnu Cemetery on the edge of what is now known as ANZAC Cove (the beach where the ANZAC forces first landed). The now-famous (yet with no credible source) Atatürk quote was inscribed on a wall near that cemetery as well (some of you may remember the quote from my visit to Te Papa).  For those not already familiar with the campaign, the British Ware Council sanctioned a plan to attack the Ottoman Empire by sending Allied warships through the narrow straits of the Dardanelles to reach Constantinople (hopefully forcing the Ottomans out of the war).  When that plan did not work they decided to land on the Gallipoli peninsula to take control of the straits.  The Allied amphibious landings began on April 25, 1915.  "The Ari Burnu Cemetery was begun shortly after the landings and contains burials from every month of the campaign.  Over 250 Commonwealth servicemen are now buried or commemorated here, representing Australian, New Zealand, British, and Indian units, and the Maltese Labour Corps."

Our next stop was at Lone Pine, where on August 6, 1915 Australian soldiers captured Turkish trenches (the attack was designed to draw off Turkish reserves from Chunuk Bair and the Sulva Bay Landings), followed by five days of the worst fighting of the campaign.  2,200 Australians and 4,000 Turks died as a result.

"The Battle of Chunuk Bair fought between August 6 and 10, 1915, is considered to be the most critical phase and turning point of the Battles of Gallipoli."  Our final stop was at Chunuk Bair Cemetery (where 632 people are buried) and the Chunuk Bair New Zealand Memorial.  Across from the cemetery stands a large stone pylon memorial "In Honour of the Soldiers of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force" with 850 names.  Located nearby is an equally large statue of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk as "the Battle of Çanakkale, as they call the Turkish struggle to retain control of the Gallipoli peninsula and the Straits of the Dardanelles,...was one of the defining moments in their history."

The Dardanelle Strait was next on our agenda, taking a ferry to cross from the European to the Asian side and finally to our hotel in Çanakkale (pronounced cha-nah-kah-lei) for the evening.  The hotel is quite large and the buffet dinner was spectacular, but the highlight for me was finally, thanks to having my luggage, being able to wash my hair.  It's the little things in life...