It occurred to me that visiting Gallipoli two days out from the Centenary celebrations had several advantages than being there on the day.
1 We went in and around the site by bus. Visitors on Anzac Day get dropped off an Anzac Cove and have to make their way around on foot.
2 Although it was busy today, it wasn't a patch on the thousands expected on Friday night.
3 We will be aboard our ship moored off shore during the dawn service.
Impressions of our day trip.
It was a long day. We set the alarm for 4:45am, then after an early 5am breakfast ballroom hit the road by 6.30 in a convoy of 24 buses. We reached the peninsula some four hours later, spent four hours there, then headed back to the city, returning to the hotel at about 10pm. Despite the long drive to and from the Gallipoli peninsula, the weather was perfect throughout: neither hot nor cold - and no rain - for once.
We visited several sites around the Gallipoli site. For me the most memorable were at ANZAC Cove, where Ataturk's famous speech to the mothers of the soldiers in 1934 is carved into stone, and at Lone Pine where I was able to find the grave of my paternal grandmother's second cousin, who died in November 1915 as a newlywed with a baby on the way.
We also visited the New Zealand memorial site, the Beach Cemetery where John Simpson's marker can be seen and the new ANZAC museum. People have often talked about the eeriness of the place, but I didn't sense that. What I did see was an ill conceived military operation that was doomed from the start and went on far too long. An unexpected side effect was the creation of national identity for Australia and New Zealand, as well as the Turks.
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Once back at the hotel we started packing for our departure as our bags have to be outside our door by 9 am. Thankfully it didn't take long since we were both rally tired.
Friday April 24th - Embarkation day.
Today could be said was divided into two parts: the first, our tour of the Domabache Palace and the Spice market, and the second, boarding the Azamara Quest to begin our month long cruise.
Having decent weather made our tour of the palace and market so much more pleasant than our earlier tours and we really enjoyed our morning. We bought some souvenirs - and even managed some light haggling. I felt quite proud of our purchases.
The bus dropped us off at the Port where we queued with the rest of the embarking passengers for passport control and ticket processing. It was all pretty painless and all we had to do was make our way to our room, where our luggage was later delivered, then go to the restaurant for some lunch.
The afternoon flew by as we unpacked - for the last time in a month- Yay. Then we were herded off for the obligatory safety drill at our muster zone. Before we knew it, it was time to sail and we all went up to Deck 9 to watch our sailaway.
The daily program is huge, so we won't have any trouble at all finding things to keep us amused on sea days. Of course with 24 ports of call to fit into the trip, there aren't too many of those. We've already made some firm friendships from our time in Istanbul, so things are looking pretty good right now.
It's now approaching midnight and the steady chug of the ship has suddenly stopped. This must be the drift zone that we've been told about. It will be dawn in about 5 hours and we'll be having our own predawn service then watch the ABC live coverage on big screen TVs. It should be a very special time.
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