Turkey Day four

After the long day at Anzac Cove we took a short ferry ride across the Dardanelles to stay a night at Canakkale. We saw the hotel bed and crashed! I set my alarm to wake us up in time for dinner but unfortnately we totally missed it!! Not to fear, we were waken up in time to have dinner and then back to bed :) In the morning we head off to make our way to Troy..

The Trojan Horse

Paul inside waiting to get inside the gates!!



This picture is showing the different boundaries of the city as time went on



Main road into the ancient city

Hopping on the bus again we made our way to Pergamum where we enjoyed a gondola ride up to the acropolis.

The lovely view from our gondola ride

Ruins of the Temple of Trajan

Theatre of Pergamum - It had a capacity to seat 10,000 people and is known to be one of the steepest theatres of the world.

Ashlea in the walk way down to the theatre.

Turkey - Day two/three

With an early start we headed from Istanbul to the Gallipoli peninsula for a BBQ lunch at Kabatepe with all the other ANZAC day tours.

Paul at Kabatepe after lunch with a lovely view in the background

Massive statute at Kabatepe

A short bus ride later we were at Anzac cove where we waited a loooonnnggg time to be let into the Anzac service. As the security plans had changed this year there was a longer wait than had been expected so after a good four hours in the hot beaming sun, we finally managed to get in and secure our place in the front row of the stands.

The trek to the memorial service - The Donkey.. I mean Paul :)

The hundreds of people waiting to get in - we had to go through a security check first (Paul managed to get his photo taken with the army guy who was searching him, must have been for a magazine or something...)

Anzac Cove - Memorial service (we made it!)

Ashlea all rugged up - getting ready for the looonnggg night ahead. Unfortunately we couldnt sleep very much as we were in the stands so it was a very long night as we tried to manoeuvre around to try and rest our heads on each other.. very uncomfortable! 

The terrain that the Anzac soldiers had to deal with

The morning after the memorial service

After the memorial service finished, we dropped off our sleeping bags etc so we could trek up the mountain in order to see the Australian memorial service and the New Zealand memorial service.

Speaks for itself... I hope

The beautiful Turkish memorial site

A statute on the way to the New Zealand memorial site (Chunuk Bair)

Turkey Day one

After landing late at night the night before, our next day started early and was packed full of the delights of Istanbul. The first stop we made was to the famous Blue Mosque. The Blue Mosque is the only mosque built with six minarets. It is known as the Blue Mosque because of the glazed tiles decorating its interior.

Blue Mosque



Topkapi Palace

Mehmet II constructed Topkapi Palace atop the Byzantine acropolis 1500AD. The palace was the residency of the Sultan, his harem and all his wives. Through the gates led to a nice park where you went to go to the museum. There were quite a few dogs and cats around the park, there were some puppies playing in the park it was very cute!!!



Inside the museum - the minbar

Inside Aya Sofya museum

Picture from inside the Aya Sofya.

Next stop was the underground cistern, it was very eery down there!!

Underground cistern

Underground cistern

Underground cistern

The weeping column - this is the only column in the cistern that has water running down it



Looking into one of the entrances to the Grand bazaar. Inside the bazaar are hundreds of shops selling carpets, ceramics, jewellery and a lot more!

This concluded our day and we were tired from absorbing all the information and navigating our way around the extremely busy streets of Istanbul.

Lion king

We were told this is another must see theatre show and it is a movie we remember watching as little ones. The costumes and props were fantastic and it is definitely a must see.

Outside the theatre

Wicked

We went to the theatre show Wicked. This is the untold story of the witches of Oz and how the Wicked witch of the west became wicked. We had to see this before our night at Wizard of Oz. It was a wicked night out.....

Outside the theatre

Colchester

Trying to make the most of our English Hertitage cards, we headed to Colchester where we saw the St John's Abbey Gate and went to the site where the story of Humpty Dumpty was believed to have started.

Colchester castle museum

Me walking around the park at the castle museum

Humpty Dumpty was believed to be a large cannon!  It was used during the English Civil War in the Siege of Colchester. In 1648 the town of Colchester was a walled town with a castle and several churches and was protected by the city wall. Standing immediately adjacent the city wall, was St Mary's Church. A huge cannon, colloquially called Humpty Dumpty, was strategically placed on the wall next to St Mary's Church.

St Mary's church



St John's abbey gate



Just call me the squirrel whisperer :)

Day out at Tate modern

We headed to the Tate modern museum to have a look around.  It was interesting to see the art there, including Ai Weiwei exhibition of 100 million sunflower seeds. The seeds were recreated from ceramic and hand painted to look like sunflower seeds.

Walking over bridge with Tate modern in background

Side veiw of the bridge

The sunflower seeds

A cool looking street performer (he had no head!!)