Today is/was a big milestone for our journey, we crossed the Dardanelles (Hellespont) to the Gallipoli Peninsula and into Europe. In all other ways the day was quite un-remarkable. This morning as we prepared to depart our camp at Troia there was light snow falling (though none was accumulating). There after a shortish hop took us to the town of Çanakkale (which we would learn is pronounced Chanakarley) and the ferry to Eceabat on the Gallipoli Peninsula.

Driving into Çanakkale had the usual challenges of navigation and watching out for overhead obstacles, but with few mistakes we made it to the ferry dock, paid our 60TL, and waited on the dock for the boat to arrive. Eventually we were joined by a number of tour buses and the ferry departed.

Eceabat is the largest town on the Peninsula but even so it is not very big. Many restaraunts, hotels and souvenir shops along the water front but away from the water front it quickly reverts to a rural farming village. Never the less we found its off-season quiet combined with the grey skies made it a pleasant place to linger.

On the water front there are a couple of interesting displays related to the WW1 battles. The first is a large relief map of the peninisula showing the locations of all the battle sights and also a large life sized display of soldiers facing and shooting at each other from trenches.


We spent the afternoon soaking up the towns "atmosphere" and camped for the night in the waterfront car park. No one seemed to care that we were there.

Dinner was döner at a local cafe.