Friday – Dardanelles Strait and The Bosphorus

This is an area steeped in history and myth. It was the scene of a major military campaign in the 2nd World War, at Gallipoli, and it is also believed to be the site of the mythical city of Troy. He told us all about the Trojan Horse, and explained that it shouldn’t, of course, be called a Trojan Horse; it should be called a Greek Horse, because it was built by the Greeks and left outside the city of Troy. The Trojans, believing that the Greeks had finally given up on the 10-years long war and were offering the horse as a gift, took it inside. Daft wotsits… unbeknown to them, it was packed full of Greek soldiers who emerged in the wee small hours to slaughter the Trojans in their beds – hence the saying ‘beware of Greeks bearing gifts’.

In the afternoon, I took a class on Perspective, which seemed to go well (considering it’s a particularly tricky subject), after which we had the second transit of the day… The Bosphorus.

The Bosphorus is a narrow strait that divides the continents of Europe and Asia, and provides entry into our main objective of the trip; The Black Sea. It also gave us a preview of a port stop to come in a few day’s time – Istanbul. With the sun going down, it being the latter end of the day, the city looked absolutely resplendent, with its mosques and minarettes set against a golden sky. Once again, our guest lecturer gave an informative and entertaining commentary on what it was we were seeing; pointing out the major buildings and telling us about the two huge bridges that span the Bosphorus – two of only 3 bridges in the World that link continents.

Did you know that Einstein didn’t speak until he was 9 years old? Another factoid courtesy of the Captain.