2015 Adventure - the Battlefields - Lisbon, Portugal
Lisbon, Portugal
Hi Everyone,
I’m travelling again, starting my journey in Turkey. I flew from
Adelaide to Dubai, with an 8 hour stopover, but Emirates were kind enough to
provide a hotel room for that time. From Dubai I flew on to Istanbul.
Our first day was spent in Istanbul, with Ercal our tour leader
showing us around the old town. We went through the Blue Mosque first, a
stunning building, called blue because of the blue tiles adorning the walls of
its interior. It was built between 1609 & 1616. Then we went to Hagia
Sophia, which is a former Greek Orthodox basilica, later an imperial mosque
& now a museum. The building has a stunning interior. It was used as a
church for 916 years & then used as a mosque for 482 years. It was converted
into a museum in 1935.
After lunch we visited the Basilica
Cistern, the largest of several hundred cisterns in Istanbul. It is a huge
underground Roman water source held up with 336 columns & covering 9,800
square metres. There are fish in the water. From there we went to Topkapi
Palace, the largest palace in Istanbul, which was the primary residence of the
Ottoman sultans for about 400 years of their 624 year reign. It’s a massive
complex which takes a while to look through. Sultans, courtiers, concubines
& eunuchs lived & worked here from the 15th to the 19th
centuries, when it was the court of the Ottoman empire. From there we went to
The Grand Bazaar, one of the largest covered markets in the world. There are alleys which go all directions
& it would be easy to get lost. There are over 3,000 shops, selling all
sorts of things.
The following day we left Istanbul at
around 11-30am & travelled to the Gallipoli peninsula. We saw lots of other
buses on the way, including a lot from the same travel company we were
travelling with, Mat (this is how he spells his name) McLachlan Battlefield
Tours. When we neared the first checkpoint, there were at least 50 buses in
front of us & we were all stopped along the road. I think over 300 busses
were used to carry people there in total. By the time we had been through a
couple of checkpoints & travelled in shuttle buses to a place near the
commemoration site at Anzac Cove & then walked to the commemoration site, I
think it was around midnight when we arrived there. We were shown film clips
throughout the night about the Gallipoli campaign & we listened to various
military bands & singers from Australia & New Zealand. It was cold, but
relatively mild & calm. The moon was shining across the water when we first
arrived & looked quite beautiful. There were a lot of people there when we
arrived, so I stood on the road which goes through the middle of the
commemoration site. The grassed areas already appeared full & a lot of the
seats were taken. The people on the grassed areas were standing, so I couldn’t
see the service directly. At the beginning of the service we heard the sound of
oars stroking the water & it seemed as if rowing boats were coming to
shore. It was very moving to be there, even though I could only see the service
on the big screen. I think there were 9 naval ships which cruised slowly past
the site during the service & I could see them. From the commemoration site
at Anzac cove, we walked up the hill to Lone Pine. The service at Lone Pine
commenced at 11am & I had a very good seat for that service. Prince Charles
& Prince Harry were there, as well as our prime minister & his wife,
the new Zealand prime minister & his wife, the Leader of the Australian
Opposition, Bill Shorten & many other dignitaries. The service finished at
around midday & then we had a seven hour wait for our bus to pick us up.
They used a ballot system to work out the order of the buses. After we left
Lone Pine we had to go to Chanuk Bair to pick up the New Zealanders from their
service. Then we went to Eceabat & had to catch the ferry across the
Dardenelles to Canakkale, where we were staying. It was 10pm when we checked in
at our hotel & after having been on the go for 2 days straight without
sleep, I was totally exhausted. Anzac Day at Gallipoli for the centenary had
been a very special experience, but I doubt whether I will go to a dawn service
there again, as it is just so gruelling. Of course it was nowhere near as hard
as the Anzacs had it.
The following day we went to the ancient
city of Troy. I think from memory that it dates back 5,000 years. It was
interesting to walk amongst the ruins. There was a replica of the Trojan Horse,
which I believe had been used in a movie about Troy. That afternoon some of us
contined further south to Annos, an ancient Greek site. It was high up on a
hill & gave a fantastic view over The Agean.
The next day we went back to the Gallipoli
Peninsula & our first stop was Fort Namazgah, where guns shot at British
ships in the Dardenelles & drove them into a minefield in March 2015. Then
we went on to the Turkish Memorial, which is an enormous structure. There were
many graves there with about 10 names on each headstone. We went to Helles
Memorial, which is near the tip of the peninsula. From there we walked to V
Beach nearby, where the British tried to land, but were subjected to heavy
Turkish machine gun fire. We then went to Redoubt Cemetery. We had lunch at a
very big restaurant in the countryside, which wasn’t quite finished & the
electrical wiring hadn’t been completed. Workmen were still working on the
building as we had our lunch. It could cater for many busloads of tourists. I
imagine that tourism would be very important for the local economy.
After lunch we went back to Anzac Cove
& walked along North beach from the commemoration site to Ari Banu
Cemetery, on the tip of Anzac Cove. Then we went to Beach Cemetery, where we
saw Simpson’s grave. We found a Smart grave at each cemetery. I’m not aware of
any Smarts being lost at Gallipoli, but I will have to look into it when I get
home. Then we went to Shrapnel Valley Cemetery & some of us climbed from
there up to Plugge’s Plateau, which gave us some idea of what the Anzacs had to
contend with. It was a reasonably hard climb, without carrying a heavy pack
& without bullets flying at us. We had a really good view over Anzac Cove
& we could see the other ridges on the peninsula & it would have been
very difficult terrain to cope with.
We spent another day at Gallipoli, starting
from Lone Pine. We walked along the road, which followed the ridge & had
Anzac trenches on the seaward side of the road & Turkish trenches on the
other side of the road. They were really quite close together. We walked past
Johnston’s Jolly & then some of us went down a steep track to the 4th
Battalion Parade Ground Cemetery. We continued walking further up the hill
along the ridge to Quinn’s Post Cemetery & then past another Turkish
Memorial & up past Monash valley to The Nek Cemetery. The Nek is quite a
small area, but I think thousands on both sides lost their lives there. We
looked through some more trenches there & some of them still had barbed
wire in them. It must have been better barbed wire than is available these
days. We continued up to Chanuk Bair, where there is a big statue of Kamel
Ataturk, as well as the New Zealand memorial. There are more trenches there
which have been restored.
We had lunch at the same restaurant &
then went to Anzac Cove again briefly, before continuing on to Green Hill
Cemetery at Suvla Bay. We went to a new museum on the peninsula called
Canakkale Destani. We spent most of the following day driving back to Istanbul.
We had one more day in Istanbul & some
of our group went for a cruise on the Bosphorus in the morning. We saw summer
& winter palaces of the sultans, a fort & various other points of
interest. I went for a walk to Taxim Square in the afternoon, which was at the
other end of a long shopping mall which was close to our hotel. There were a
few young people killed by police at a demonstration in Taxim Square a few
months after I was in Istanbul last time, but thankfully Taxim Square looked
just as I remembered it from 3 years ago. They were going to have a May Day
rally at Taxim Square the day I left Istanbul, so I hope it went peacefully.
That evening we had a big gathering of all the tour groups with the company I
was travelling with, at a belly dancing place. We were greeted at the door by
Mat McLachlan, the owner of the tour company. We had a meal & were
entertained by belly dancers & musical acts.
On May 1st I flew with Turkish
Airlines from Istanbul to Paris. I caught the train into the city & the
Metro to the area where my hotel was. When I got there I found that the hotel
was in the same building as the hostel I stayed at 5 years ago.
We had a free day in Paris, so I spent it
with friends I had met on the tour in Turkey. It was a cool day with occasional
light misty showers. We went to the Arc de Triomphe & walked from there to
the River Seine, which we crossed to go to the Eiffel Tower. The top of the
tower was covered in mist that day, so we didn’t see the whole tower. It would
not have been much of a day to go to the top of the tower. We walked past The
Palais & along the Champs Elysee for a little while & called by The
Louvre. We went to the Notre Dame & there was an enormous crowd waiting to
go in & to climb up on the roof, so I was glad I had been there before. We
caught a taxi back to the Champs Elysee & browsed through some of the shops
as we walked along there. We caught the Metro back to our hotel & came out
of the station from a different exit from where we had been before & got
hopelessly lost. One of my friends asked a local sitting in his car if he knew
where our hotel was & he said jump in & he drove us to the hotel. We
tried to pay him when we arrived, but he wouldn’t accept anything.
The next day we began our Western Front
tour & first headed to the Champagne District, where we did a tour of G H
Mumm Champagne Cellars. We had a tasting after the tour. G H Mumm champagne is
used by Formula One for the celebrations of winning & second & third
drivers. Then we continued on to Reims for lunch. We continued on to the Mont
St Quentin Memorial, before going on to Ypres to check into our hotel. Ypres is
in Belgium.
We went to Langemark German Cemetery, where
over 40,000 bodies are buried. There are almost 25,000 in a mass grave &
the headstones, which are on the ground have many names on them. Then we
stopped off at The Brooding Soldier Canadian Memorial, before going on to the
Passchendale Museum. We went around the roundabout at Hellfire Corner a few
times during the day. We went to Perth China Wall Cemetery & then on to
Hill 60. Hill 60 is not a lot higher than the surrounding countryside, but
enough to be an advantage. It was artificially raised by dirt dug from a
railway cutting alongside. Hill 60 still shows the signs of the shelling &
craters are still there from the mining & blasting underneath. Australian
miners dug tunnels underneath Hill 60. I can remember seeing the movie of the
same name at Bendigo a few years ago. There were sheep grazing on Hill 60 the
day we were there. I believe that Hill 60 was held by the French, Germans &
British at different stages of the war. A lot of men on both sides died there
& are still buried under the hill. There is still a German bunker on the
hill. We had lunch at a café by Polygon Woods. We walked through the woods,
where we saw a bunker & visited a couple of cemeteries there. Then we went
to Bedford house Cemetery & Aeroplane Cemetery, before heading back to our
hotel in Ypres. That evening we went to the laying of the wreath ceremony at
Menin Gate. That ceremony takes place every evening at 8pm & has done since
1928, except during the Second World War, when it was conducted in England.
Next morning we went to Tyne Cot Cemetery,
where 12,000 Commonwealth soldiers are buried. Then we went to Island of
Ireland Peace Park, before going to Le Trou Aid Post Cemetery & VC Corner
Australian Cemetery. It was a cold, very windy day & it rained while we
were at that cemetery. We went to Australian Memorial Park, before going to the
new Fromelle (Pleasant Wood) Military Cemetery, which was opened in 2010. You
might recall that a mass grave of Australian soldiers was found in recent years
in Pleasant Wood & this is where those soldiers are now buried. It’s a
beautiful cemetery & kept immaculately, as are all the war cemeteries. Then
we went to the Canadian Memorial at Vimy Ridge, which is a massive structure. From
there we went to the Australian Memorial in Bullecourt & then to The
Bullecourt Digger memorial at the top of the rise where the Battle of
Bullecourt took place. From there we went to Euston Road Cemetery & on to
Amien, where we stayed the night.
Our first visit next morning was to the
Villers-Bretonneux Military Cemetery, which is a very impressive memorial &
cemetery. We then went to the Australian Corps Memorial Park- Le Hamel, where
the British, Austalian, American, Canadian & French flags fly. We then went
to the school in Villers-Bretonneux, which houses a small museum. The school
was built with money raised by Victorian school children. We then went to the
site of the first ever tank battle, which took place on April 24th,
1918. Then we went to the brickworks chimney near which The Red Baron (Baron
Manfred von Richtofen) was shot down. From there to the Australian 3rd Division Memorial, then the Ulster Tower
Memorial & then to the Poziers British Cemetery, in which many Australian
soldiers are buried, including a VC winner. We went to the 1st Australian Division Memorial on the
outskirts of Pozieres, before going to The Tank Memorial & The Windmill
site on the opposite side of the road. We went to Mouquet Farm, which was held
by the Germans & there is an Australian memorial on the side of the road
there. Finally, we went to see another impressive structure at Thiepval
Memorial & Anglo-French Cemetery. From there we headed back to Paris.
We didn’t go to all the memorials &
cemeteries, but the countryside is littered with them. As I said before, all
the cemeteries are in immaculate condition. It was a moving experience
travelling through the Western Front. Our grandfather was in the 48th
Battalion, which was part of the 4th Australian Division & I can
only presume that I went to some of the places where he would have been. I know
that Mum used to talk about Pop talking about Pozieres a lot & the 48th
Battalion were there, so I can only presume that he was. We went to other
places as well, where the 4th Division were involved. We had a
historian travelling with us & she would put a map on the ground at a lot
of the battle sites & explain how it happened. I wish I could remember a
fraction of the information she told us. Overall, the battlefield tours in both
Turkey & The Western Front were very interesting & informative.
I am going to attempt to post this tonight.
I’m sorry I’m so late, but I am really struggling for spare time. Those on
Facebook saw photos from these trips weeks ago.