{"id":2991,"date":"2022-06-09T16:37:00","date_gmt":"2022-06-09T15:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/?p=2991"},"modified":"2022-06-13T16:42:08","modified_gmt":"2022-06-13T15:42:08","slug":"canakkale-and-the-ancient-city-of-troy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/canakkale-and-the-ancient-city-of-troy\/","title":{"rendered":"CANAKKALE AND THE ANCIENT CITY OF TROY"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Today, at about 8am, we arrived in Canakkale (pronounced chan-ack-a-lee), in Turkey. The cruise terminal is located about 6 miles from the town of Canakkale itself, and is a little out on a limb, so anyone wishing to visit it would need to do so by shuttle bus. We had a tour booked today, however, for which we needed to be on the quayside at 1:15pm, so we opted to keep things very simple and not do much at all in the morning. The most energetic thing we did was to go up to Deck 14 and take a walk around; in doing so, we discovered that they have cool boxes dotted around up there, containing bottles of water on ice – worth remembering when stocking up to go ashore (they have bottles of water as you leave the ship, but those aren’t cold\u2026)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking of cold water, we noticed that our fridge wasn’t working again this morning, for the second time this trip. We reported to reception and it was fixed by the time we came back from our excursion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because we were on board at midday, we were able to have lunch, and then get our things together to be out on the quayside by 1:15pm in time for our tour\u2026 a trip to the Ancient City of Troy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The first part of our outing was to visit the Troy Museum. Having visited on an earlier cruise, we were surprised not to have seen the museum before – until we discovered it was only built in 2018 – which explained it; the last time we visited, in 2015 (on the Minerva) it hadn’t been built yet. As museums go, it was well-laid out on four floors of a modern, purpose-built concrete building, with lots of information about Troy conveyed in lots of interesting, and creative, ways. For example, peering through gaps in a rockface revealed small 3D scenes featuring holographic figures going about their daily Trojan business – very neatly done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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From the museum, we moved on to the main event – the archaeological site that is Troy, an ancient city that is not just one city, but nine cities, each one basically built on top of the previous one. It’s a fascinating place if you look beyond the fact that, in its current state today, it is just a pile of rocks, but then it is also wrapped up in the story of Helen, the Trojan Wars and of course the famous wooden horse that sparked the saying ‘beware of greeks bearing gifts’.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Myth or history, it all makes for an compelling visit, with sturdy wooden walkways leading visitors through the site and small plaques informing them of which level they are on at any given time. The enthusiastic guide managed to bring the place alive somewhat, although I was tending to hang around the back of the group, to shoot video clips with as few people in them as possible. The final section of the tour featured something that looks distinctly like an amphiteatre, but what the guide explained was in fact an ‘odeon’ – an odeon is smaller and more initimate, while an amphitheatre is much larger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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On our way back to the buses, we also had the opportunity to photograph a mock-up of what they believed the Trojan Horse would have looked like (very different from the one depicted in the movie ‘Troy’, it must be said; the full-sized prop of which is permanently on display on the promenade at Canakkale).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It had been quite a long afternoon, and we didn’t get back to port until 5:30pm. As a result, we’d missed the 4pm daily testing. Not just us, personally, but a whole bunch of lecturers and entertainers who were on the same tour as us. Needless to say, Rolando was anxiously waiting for us all as we came back on board, with nose-pokey tests in hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It also meant we were a little late to dinner, after which I had my usual dessert\u2026 vanilla ice cream. The waiter has been very good, and knows exactly how I like it\u2026 3 or 4 scoops being ideal. My taste for vanilla ice cream has provided our dinner companions with much entertainment and hilarity, and today, what has become known as a ‘mountain of Vanilla’ came served with a record 6 scoops. Apparently, the ships record is 10 scoops\u2026 now there’s a challenge worth contemplating\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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After dinner, we took a ‘promenade’ around the Promenade (deck), in the hopes of walking my six scoops off. It’s become a regular treat that we’ve grown to enjoy, catching the cooler evening air while doing two or three relaxing laps. Tonight it was very windy, though, and we ended up dropping into The Supper Club, which is on the same level, after hearing the definite strains of live music. Steve (one of our fellow lecturers) was there singing, accompanied by the accoustic duo, Sam and Coral. Naturally, we made ourselves comfortable and ordered a drink. Soon, the duo were replaced by The Trio, and an evening of laid-back lyrical entertainment was had by all (or at least the handful of people who were in The Supper Club, which doesn’t seem particularly well frequented).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today, at about 8am, we arrived in Canakkale (pronounced chan-ack-a-lee), in Turkey. The cruise terminal is located about 6 miles from the town of Canakkale itself, and is a little out on a limb, so anyone wishing to visit it would need to do so by shuttle bus. We had a tour booked today, however, for which we needed to...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2999,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[28,15,36],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2991"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2991"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2991\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3001,"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2991\/revisions\/3001"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}