11th May 2008
Today we got up really early at hotel crowded house and crossed the Dardanelles to Troy. It was just as magical of an experience as ever for me and it was made all the better by the fact that the majority of the new tour leaders were more interested in letting me guide them around the site.
I went up to the map at the front and explained all about stratigraphy and how there are actually several cities buried at the site showed people the Schliemann trench and pointed out the faults with that kind of archaeology. I explained why the sea no is longer visible from the citadel and told people to try and imagine Achilles and Hector fighting it out on the beach.
A few of them had been before and not quite understood the site, they came up to me afterwards and told me how much the enjoyed it a second time round, which was a real rush for me.
After Troy we all got back on the bus for our long drive to Bergama. We stopped off at a little nut shop and I bought a big bag full of Turkish delight toilets there were also something different, the guy that runs the place has stuck up all sorts of weird and wonderful things in them. We were also taken to Bergama restaurant, for a very nice lunch. We then set off for the ruins of Pergamon.
We set off for Pergamon and arrived there pretty late, due to making a stop at a carpet shop, which was quite interesting in itself were shown how they get the silk for the silkworm chrysalis, which was very informative.
We arrived at Pergamon, again driving past the Red Basilica, much to my annoyance and got out and most of the group went off with a local guide, while a few people chose to follow me around.
I actually decided to climb down the ancient theatre with Nigel and we got some awesome photos down there. A couple of the guests asked me a few questions, and it was nice to be able to answer them. I managed to get most people to have their picture taken behind the headless statue of Hadrian, I also did this again.
After Pergamon, we set off for a stop at an Onyx factory, which was quite fascinating, but I wanted to get out of there to prevent myself from buying some of the gorgeous jewellery they had for sale. We were then back on the bus for the two-hour drive to Kusadasi was looking forward to revisiting party central and memories of Tolga and Fhartı were already flooding back!