Çanakkale - 3000BC to 1915AD

I'm on a tour of Troy this morning, and get a lift to the ruins where we meet out guide, Mustafa Aksin, who's written a book on the place.

Turns out Troy is actually 9 cities, by which I mean between 3000BC and 500AD there were 9 distinct phases of settlement (further sub-divided into 43 different building phases within them, making the whole place a colossal mess, archiologically speaking). The Troy of Greek legend was either the last end of Troy VI or the beginning of Troy VII, about 1300 BC.

Our guide is excellent and leads us round the ruins. Today I touched the walls of Homeric Troy.

Back at town I have my first kebab for at least a day and go to the military museum, which comemorates the Gallipolli offensives. They have several good exhibitions, though I find it distinctly odd wandering about - the place, reasonably enough, mainly deals wıth the Turkish (and victorious) side of things. Most other museums like that I have been to are told from the British / Allies side of things. It's an interesting flip of perspective.

I go for a wander in the late afternoon North along the coast and manage to wind up nearly walking into a Turkish military compound, then get vaguely lost in the residential area. Should have gone South. Dinner is an İskender kebab (like a döner but with yoghurt). I find a bar where the waitress takes a few minutes out of her busy schedule to play backgammon with me. She has to leave me 'to serve drinks' but it's blatently because I'm kicking her arse, despite being 3-2 down.

The next bar has both a barman who's willing to negotiate the price of beer (thank you shameless haggling) and a live duo. Çanakkale has grown on me, but I'm off tomorrow.