Turkey - the sights

Istanbul
We started the tour with a walking tour of the old part of Istanbul (European side). First up was Hippodrome Square, which used to be a Hippodrome and has since been converted to a square. There is an obelisk there that was stolen from the temple of Amun in Karnak. It was sawn to 2/3 its original length for easier transportation! I thought it was just the Brits who did stuff like this! Outrageous!
Next up was the Blue Mosque, which was beautiful. It has 6 minarets, which was what the mosque in Mecca had, so to keep the one in Mecca better, they persuaded them to put an extra one there. The inside was spectacular, with blue tiles being the dominant feature. There was the sultan's section and the screens to section off the women from the men.
Hagia Sofia (aka Aya Sofia) was originally built as a Christian church and then converted to a mosque before its final transformation into a museum. When it was converted to a mosque, the Christian mosaics were just plastered over and so were preserved.
We also visited the Byzantine Cistern, water storage facility for Istanbul in the Byzantine period. They used columns from around the city and near the back, ran out of columns of the same height. So, they found a couple of Medusa head carvings and stuck them upside down under shorter columns.
Topkapi Palace, ancient home of the Sultans, is now a museum. It contains one of the largest diamonds in the world (5th, I think), an 86 carat diamond called the Spoon diamond because it was found in a rubbish heap and sold for 3 spoons. There is also a Holy Relic museum, which claims to have amongst other things: Mohammed's sword, Abraham's turban, Moses' rod, John the Baptist's arm (!), Mohammed's beard and tooth. Urgh! All I can say is that the turban and rod look in remarkably good condition for things that are supposed to be thousands of years old.
Gallipoli
After a looong bus ride the next day, we arrived at Gallipoli. We were shown Brighton Beach (the beach the Anzacs were supposed to land on - with a gentle slope up from the beach) and Anzac Cove, the beach they actually landed on with the steep hill rising straight from the beach. There were several very moving memorials to the soldiers, in particular a quote from Ataturk, including: 'You, the mothers, who sent their sons from far away countries, wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well.' We visited Lone Pine Memorial, where the pine tree is actually a seedling from the original lone pine. It was brought over to Turkey from Australia after the original died in a fire. There was also a memorial to the 57th Regiment of the Turkish army. This regiment was completely wiped out in the defence of the peninsula. Ataturk was actually the commander of the depleted forces at Gallipoli and he sent the men to defend Anzac Cove knowing that he was sending them to their deaths. What a terrible decision to have to make. The graves had each soldier's name and age and most on both sides were between 18 and 22. Such a waste.
Troy
There are 9 Troys built one on top of each other. The famous Troy is Troy VI. The coolest thing about the excavation was the discovery of the 'secret gate' of Troy VI. As our guide says, you would have to be stupid not to find the secret gate. However, that was not its secret. The gate was built such that there was a second wall on the outside which curved around to the gate. This prevented invading armies from using battering rams to charge the gate as there was not enough room to get the battering rams around the curve. Even to the untrained eye it was quite obvious the differences between Troy I to Troy VI to Troy IX. The advances in stonework is quite amazing.
Pergamon
Pergamon is situated at the top of a hill, which, two thousand years ago was next to the sea. Since then, the rivers have brought aluvial earth down past the hill and it is now 5km from the sea. The Acropolis has been reconstructed from the ruins. Archeologists have cemented the pieces together to show what it looked like. They have done this with quite a few of the ruins, including the famous library facade at Ephesus. I feel a little cheated that these are all reconstructed pieces and not still standing from two to three thousand years ago. There were great archives and libraries at Pergamon and Ephesus but these were taken to Alexandria at the request of Cleopatra and then were lost in the fire.
Ephesus
Ephesus is one of the great old cities with significant amounts of ruins still there. It was once a thriving metropolis of ~250,000 people. There are the remains of a public toilet, what is thought to be a brothel, shops, houses and the 3 most famous parts of the city: Hadrian's temple, the library facade (truly spectacular) and the theatre, which could hold 20,000 people. It was visited by Cleopatra and Marc Antony shortly after their marriage.
Pamukkale
The calcium terraces of Pamukkale are incredible. As one tour member asked stupidly after the guide had just explained the origins of the phenomenon, 'Oh, is that snow?' It is an amazing view from afar, a great white expanse across the hills. I am still shocked that you are allowed to walk on a bit of it (shocked but I still did it). You have to go barefoot. It is very cold and very hard. Just above the terraces are the ruins of yet another city, Hierapolis, with yet another theatre. I was just about ruined out by this time. There are only so many ruins you can see in one hit without them all blurring into each other.
Capadoccia
People carved entire towns into the rock in the Capadoccia region. Many early Christians lived in the area and when they were persecuted, they ran to hide in their underground cities, which have very small tunnels leading to large rooms with heavy, round stones that can be rolled into position over the doorways. In their normal towns they built churches, kitchens and dining halls for everyday use. The rock formations are very unusual and very different from the landscape of the rest of western Turkey.
Ankara
We stopped in Ankara for lunch on the way back to Istanbul and several of us tried Maccas and KFC at the shopping centre. 4 YTL (1 YTL ~ A$1) for a cheeseburger and small fries! What a rip-off!
A very enjoyable trip to a very exotic country.
Photos in the usual place.