From Lesvos we took a ferry to Ayvalik to begin our adventure in Turkiye. Interesting point to note – in 2022 Turkey officially requested for the world to officially call the country Turkiye.

Ayvalik seemed like a nice port town, more upmarket than Newhaven! We were woken with the most amazing Turkish breakfast, a feast of breads, cheeses, jams, salad, eggs, cake and a water spray to ward off the local cats from stealing our food. We didn’t have time to explore Ayvalik as after feasting it was time to collect our hire car and drive to Troy.

The ancient city of Troy, with over 4000 years of history, is one of the most famous archaeological sites in the world. We tried to imagine what it would be like living 3000 BC and we were particularly impressed by the weaponry, jewellery and other artefacts on display in the Troy Museum, The ancient city had a replica wooden Trojan horse, in Greek mythology, the horse was said to have been used by the Greeks during the Trojan War to enter the city of Troy and win the war.

From Troy we drove towards Cannekale to catch a very quick 10 minute ferry across the Dardanelles Strait to Kilitbahir. This water connects the Aegean Sea with the Sea of Marmara and serves as a boundary between Asia and Europe (similar to Istanbul with the Bosphorus Strait). Kilitbahir is located in European Turkiye and it was like going back in time with it’s peaceful cobbled streets and stone houses. We stayed in a traditional stone house and loved hanging out in the courtyard garden. With a lack of exciting theme park options the girls made do with some plastic swings. There were plenty of cats and dogs to make friends with too.

We took the ferry back over to Asian Turkiye as foot passengers and ambled along the bustling harbour of Cannekale for yet another ice cream, Efes and dinner. And more cat stroking. We also found a busker who reminded us of Fred from Tabby McTat as he had so many cats! The English songs he sang the girls we’re a bit lost on them, for example the Beatles (as opposed to Olivia Rodrigo).

Kilitbahir is near to the Gallipoli (now Gelibolou) campaign in WW1 which Craig has written about here.

After a few days it was time to leave our little stone house and drive on to Istanbul.