The Anzacs

Also from everywhere in the British Empire (and not only from Britain and France) came the Allied troops. In Gallipoli, the Anzacs were most noted for their courage and sacrifice, even farther away from home. Their motivation and feelings is, if anything, any more intriguing.

From the far corners of the empire...

Really interesting about the Turkish memorials at Gallipoli are how they depict the participation of soldiers from far outside todays Turkey, mirroring the much larger Ottoman empire, which fought (and partly fell through) the First World War. The stones commemorate boys and men from Thessaloniki (Greece), Aleppo (Syria), Tabriz (Iran), Baku (Azerbaijan) and farther east outside the borders of the realm, alongside those from Izmir, Bitlis, Antep and Nevsehir (all in today's Turkey). I really wonder how they all, some from far outside the Ottoman lands, came to fight and die in the trenches of the Gallipoli peninsula and for what cause?












I will return to the Allied memorials another day.

Assos

I have a huge backlog of photos to show and stories to tell and limited time to blog in. So have patience with me, please. I will try to take things sort of chronologically from the last few weeks (so I leave Ani and Kars for the time being, having given you a morsel to tempt you with), and a few themes do emerge here and there - but discovering that may take some time and effort... ;-)

This is Assos, a village near our bathing resort in north-western Turkey.



In the distance one could see Greek Lesvos/Mytilini quite clearly in good weather.



Reminiscint of the region's multilayered history, there was both an antique Greek temple and an early Turkish mosque at the top of the hill the village clung on to.

Ani on the Silk Road

We visited Ani yesterday, a medieval Armenian capital once 100 000 strong, and a significant post on the Silk Road (on one of it's many stretches that is). Today the ruins of its city walls and churches still stand, overlooking the Turkish-Armenian border gorge from the Turkish side. It was quite amazing and I hope to show you more of the marvels of its architecture.





This was the great cathedral of Ani.

Natural beauty

Maybe most chocking about Gallipoli was, after all, the overwhelming beauty of the landscape, in contrast with the never-ending memories of the widespread destruction it had witnessed...

Gallipoli memorials

Not all was happy sunshine though - we also went for a day to the battlefields and war memorials of Gallipoli, which was a depressing lesson in the sheer madness and human waste that war is. The whole peninsula is jampacked with war memorials (Turkish and allied beautifully equal but separate) and cemeteries, over many square kilometers. For tonight, I will show you one of each.





Later, I will try to come back to show you more. For the overwhelming feeling of the tiny beachheads, overlooked by Turkish fortresses, where the allied tried to land their invasion force, was sadness. Over the desperate attempt, and by the look of it how badly backed it was by topographical realities and facts...

Clark Kent horsing around?

Just a thought: at least at home, there are no phone booths any more, so where does Clark Kent go to turn into Superman? Mobile phones just don't suffice for that. Well, here is part of the answer... at least for Superhorse! Thank you, Turk Telekom!

Relaxed

Just a quick peak at us on vacation. Keep on looking in here - there is more to come!

Vacation paradise

This is where I've spent most of the last week or so - not bad at all! It's in Assos, on the Turkish Aegean coast (but we were in a different village than in the link though), on the mainland north of Lesvos/Mytilini in Greece (where I have also promised to go once - Angela, I haven't forgotten!).

Gazing forward

This is the traditional Turkish way of seeing into the future - reading your coffee-cup. I may have been bad at blogging for sometime, but I do hope you can see me trying to make up for it in the days to come...

Mersin corniche again

More of the corniche culture park!





I told you some of the stuff was a bit quirky... ;-)

Mersin corniche

A nicely made park along the seaside, if somewhat bizarre in some of its features (but more of THAT later!).

Mediterranean outlook

This is from the corniche in Mersin, on Turkey's south coast. More of the same to come, from a walk I took along it soon 2 weeks ago.