Bye bye Istanbul Hello Troy

Kalimera, good day from the island of Crete!
Sorry I'm so behind in my blogging, but you'll be happy to know that this particular camera is uploading into this particular computer very well. Yeah!
We met a couple yesterday on Rhodes who were blogging and had brought a tiny laptop with them which seems to be the way to go (no worries about language issues).
The day after our Bosphorus cruise we left Istanbul on the ferry heading across the Sea of Marmaris for Bandirma. Then we boarded a bus for Canakkale, the site of one of the most famous battles of all time--Truva; the ancient city of Troy.
Homer's Iliad, and other early Greek writings relate the epic tale of the Trojan War. The battle, according to legend, was provoked by the prince of Troy, a boy named Paris, who abducted Helen, the beautiful daughter of Menaleus, King of Sparta. The war raged for ten years and the Iliad relates only the last couple of weeks and includes the Greek's brilliant trickery of the Trojan Horse and the deaths of Achilles, Hector, Patrocles, and pretty much everyone else except for Odysseus (who had to live on so he could be the protagonist of the sequel, The Odyssey).
The Iliad was long believed to be pure mythology until the 1870's when a wealthy, Homer-obsessed, German businessman, Heinrich Schliemann, set out to discover Priam's Treasure--the treasure of the King of Troy. What became of Priam's treasure is a very interesting story, but you can check that out on wikipedia.
The point is, that although the Iliad relates all kinds of maiden abductions and doings of the gods and such in explaining the Trojan War, the subtext is that Troy sits right at the entrance to the Dardanelles (also called the Hellespont). That narrow stretch of water is the connection between the Mediterrenean, The Sea of Marmara, then the Bosphorus and finally ihe Black Sea which allows access to Europe's back door.
That has been an important trade route and strategic location since mythical times and is still a constant source of friction. This vicinity has repeatedly seen bloody fighting throughout history and as recently as the last century. More on that later...
There's not much to see at the site of Troy today (unless you're an archeology buff, then it is...like, wow man). But they do have this mock up Trojan Horse which you can climb up in (that's Rory and Jasper in the windows).
The other pictures are of The Bonjour Guesthouse where we stayed in Istanbul, and one more of Salome (just so my mom can't deny that she was there).
Ciao