The Great Library at Ephesus



Ephesus




Here are a few of my favourite photos so far of this amazing tour. Turkey is the most wonderful place to be. The Turkish people are friendly and charming wherever we go and love to be photographed which is so refreshing. Even the children love to be photographed. We all loved Troy. It was so peaceful. We could have stayed there for a couple of hours to take in the marvellous views and sense of history. Pergamon was on top of a very high hill and we took a cable car to get to the top. Wonderful ruins to be explored. Ephesus was an enormous site and quite crowded even early in the morning but we took a couple of hours to explore about two kilometres of streets with outstanding ruins. A photographer's paradise!



Annie in Aspendos

 
 

Lady on Bosphorus








Turkish boy near Pamukkale



Pergamon



A Texan in Turkey

"You'll need to donate $50 to my church" was his opening gambit when I asked to photograph the man with the long black sutan. Father Andrews hails from Dallas, Texas and stood out from the MCG size crowd with his cowboy hat. As a religious leader of the Coptic Church in Texas he agreed to barter on the shoot fee. I agreed to say a prayer for him and we quashed the fifty buck fee. 'Now let's do this right' he said. He put hi right hand in his pocket and took out his wooden cross.

Figs, Flags & Friendliness

Almost everywhere I've travelled in Turkey I've always been able to see a turkish Flag and smell a fig tree. They are every where. Fig trees dot the landscapes, line the streets and spring up in ancient Greco-Roman ruins. The flavour of the small green Turkish figs is sublime. Fig trees provide shade from the clear autumn sun and they also invade our senses. Visually unimposing but always there like an old friend; you can feel the sand-paper prickle of their leaves (like some of my special old friends); smell the sweet scent of the fig in the air and taste the sweet luscious fruit itself. Some consider the fig a symbol of life and love. The only sense the fig doesn't influence is hearing. Then again, like old loves, its probably a good thing that old fig trees don't talk.

The Travertines

A few days ago David showed me a photo of the travertines. Until then I had no idea what to expect. The night before our planned trip there, David, Connie and I decided to take a taxi ride up there for sunrise. It was less than 10 minutes away so we had time before breakfast. Sunday morning arrived and off we went, with our very enthusiastic taxi driver. It was well worth the early rise to spend the 45 minutes taking photos unimpeded by tourists and with time to marvel at the beautiful formations. Our very obliging taxi driver had a coffee with his friend at a nearby cafe while he waited for us. I should have taken a photo of him, it was remiss of me to not think of it, especially when he kissed the 45L we paid him, his lucky fare - "chance" was what he called it - the first fare of the day.

A little later we ventured back to the travertines with the Turkish Delight tour and again marvelled at the beautiful snow like formations and ponds of cool, refreshing water, which many people were paddling or swimming in. We chatted to a couple of french girls from Versailles who were touring around. They were very happy to be photographed and were delighted to learn we came from Perth, the next stop on their travels.

Gallipoli

Six frigates of the Turkish navy came from the south, sailing sedately and line astern out of the faint haze of the Aegean. I watched them from a small bluff on Anzac Cove, conscious of the poignancy of witnessing warships once more standing off this sacred site.

The Cove itself is insignificant: there might be a million like it off the Aegean. What is surprising is the height of the country: it rises immediately from the beach; cliffs of clay ascending into steep, gorse covered hills. Not that they were covered in gorse in 1915; within days of the landing all that was blasted into oblivion by the guns. Yet the sharp rise of the hills remained the same; every rising metre to be fought for and died for.

This was a battle for the high ground; our visit to Lone Pine tells us that immediately. This place dominates the coast line for miles. Howitzers here would have rained devastation on the beaches below. If you took the high ground you could take out the guns guarding the narrow Dardanelles; take out the guns and the British and French battleships could sail unhindered to Istanbul and take Turkey out of the war. Great strategy on paper: but one look at this country tells you that, against a superbly led determined and experienced enemy, it would be the hardest ask imaginable

I think maybe the generals in the panelled rooms of the British War Office underestimated ‘Johnny’ Turk. Men in the regiments under Attaturk had seen action and were hardened soldiers; six months earlier our boys had been farm hands and shop assistants. It’s a wonder that they hung on so long.

Which is perhaps why so many of the eulogies carved on the simple gravestones try to make some sense of the senseless; to reconcile the loss of young, long-limbed sons and brothers and husbands to the will of God and the certainty of meeting again on the other side.

But carved in stone on a grave marker at Lone Pine is a message that, for me, says it all. It’s the grave marker of a captain lying between two privates. Captain GW Brown was twenty-five: a captain at the same age our kids are starting their careers. What could a man who made captain at the age of twenty-five have made of his life? What could he have been at forty; at fifty?

Captain Brown, dead at twenty-five was the son of WA and EA Brown. They knew exactly what they had lost. They made no attempt at patriotism or reconciliation to an after life. On their son’s marker they had carved, ‘Our best we have given to the earth’.

This sombre, gorse-covered earth is filled with the best of at least five nations. The generations who have come and gone since they went into the earth have missed them sorely.

Troy

I stood on the walls of Troy, alone for a moment with no other tourists, not even the sound of tourists, only the rustle of the soft wind over the stones. Beyond the walls and fallen columns lay the plain; fields and vineyards, green and gold in the September light. The sea has long since receded from the walls and the beach is distant, but it doesn’t take much imagination to hear the clash of bronze on bronze; the cries of men in battle; see the tall towers, their battlements glittering with spears. Then, suddenly, a group of French tourists appeared and my moment was gone; a small respite from the chatter of people and the clicking of a billion shutters.

It’s good to be here, but it’s people like me who make it hard for people like me to get a sense of history.

Kusadasi

Driving through tunnels is not normally the most exciting thing I do on overseas trips. But as our bus entered a tunnel on the outskirts of Kusadasi I noticed the number of coloured lights in the tunnel. Shot on Shutter Speed priority with a speed of 1/2 sec and -1 set in exp modification.