Çanakkale

Aynalı Çarşı, Çanakkale

The famous bazaar, which also became the subject of a folk song during the Çanakkale (Gallipoli) battles, is known to have been built in 1889, during the reign of Abdülhamid II, by one of Çanakkale's leading Jewish families. An unverified claim is that it was built much earlier. The bazaar is also mentioned in Evliya Çelebi's work the "Seyahatname". The records show that it was a miniature of the Spice Bazaar in Istanbul.

Çanakkale Martyrs' Memorial

The monuments and martyrs' cemeteries in the Gallipoli Peninsula Historical National Park, the centre of the Çanakkale battles, where an epic was written that sends shivers down the spine, sweeps you into an indescribable intensity of feeling, and that every child of this homeland should learn by breathing that air… Perhaps the first place to visit when you come to Çanakkale.

Central Çanakkale

The centre, including the Çanakkale waterfront promenade (kordon) with its magnificent view of the Dardanelles, the wooden horse used in the film Troy and the model of the ancient city of Troy, is the heart of the city…

Çanakkale Naval Museum

You can visit the museum, built in 1462 by Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror and also used in the Çanakkale battles, which holds a full-size model of the minelayer Nusrat, one of the heroes of the Çanakkale naval victory, and various weapons used in the Çanakkale battles.

Çanakkale Clock Tower

This splendid clock tower, built in the 1890s by the Italian consul-general Emilio Vitalis, is also worth seeing.

Ancient city of Troy

This ancient city, on the World Heritage List since 1988, has had national park status since 1996. It is considered a cradle of ancient civilisations. It was formed by 9 cities built one on top of another. It is also known by names such as Truva, Troya, Troia, Ilion and Wilusa. In location it lies at the foot of the Kaz Mountains. You can stop here to see the Trojan Horse, the subject of many films.

Bozcaada (Tenedos)

Bozcaada (Tenedos) is today a district of Çanakkale, with Samothrace to its north, Lemnos to the north-west, Lesbos to the south and Gökçeada to the north-east. With the small islets and rocks around it, it has an area of 40 km². Bozcaada has no high hills or forests. The name Bozcaada is also said to suit it because of Göztepe, the island's highest hill, which commands the surroundings for 40 miles. It is one of our country's two islands in the Aegean Sea. Bozcaada, called Tenedos in antiquity, is mentioned in Homer's Iliad.

Herodotus writes that the first settlers of Bozcaada were the Pelasgians. In 334 BC Alexander the Great took control of the Aegean islands; later, in the 1st century BC, the Roman Empire did; and in 1455–56 the island, taken from the Venetians, became the first island in the Aegean to pass into Turkish hands. Terracotta figurines and pottery have been found in the cemetery used from the 6th century BC to the Roman period. The second castle built by the Venetians (Yeni Kale) and the Köprülü Mehmet Paşa Mosque, built in 1657, are the district's other works. Among the important Ottoman-period historic places on Bozcaada, the Yalı Mosque, the Alaybey Mosque, the Namazgah, now used as a park, with its historic fountain, and the three-aisled Church of the Virgin Mary, built in 1870, will impress visitors with their architecture.

The place known as the Aya Paraskevi Ayazma (holy spring) has an important place in Orthodox belief. The Paraskevi festivities once held here have today been replaced by the Grape Harvest Festival. The wineries, the wind farm, the Bozcaada vineyards, the Alaybey Mosque, the Greek Orthodox Church of the Kimisis Theodokou, Göztepe, Habbele, the Çamlık picnic area, the Namazgah Fountain, the island houses, the Bozcaada Local History Research Centre, Tuz Burnu, the Köprülü Mehmet Paşa Mosque, Ayazma marina, Mermer Burnu and the Polente lighthouse are places you must see on the island. On the island, where the "Grape Harvest Festival" is held in August, wine is made in homes as well as in 4 wineries. The island, called Tenedos in ancient times, is reached by car ferry from the Geyikli Yükyeri pier.

Gallipoli Peninsula Historical National Park (Eceabat)

The Gallipoli Peninsula Historical National Park is in the Marmara Region, within Çanakkale province. It was declared a national park in 1973. Its area is 33,490 hectares. Within the boundaries of the Gallipoli Peninsula Historical National Park there is 1 district (Eceabat) and 8 villages.
The Çanakkale battles are an epic of defence, won through the superhuman resistance of the Turkish nation, under the leadership of Staff Lieutenant Colonel Mustafa Kemal, against the most powerful states in the world.

In this war, which lasted 8.5 months, both shores of the Strait became a kind of hell, and nearly half a million lives were lost. The monuments built and the martyrs' cemeteries laid out in memory of the hundreds of thousands of losses in the Battle of Çanakkale, one of the largest battles in the world, fought between the Entente Powers and the Ottoman Army in the First World War, not only recall the suffering of the war but also display one of history's magnificent victories.

The National Park, with its monuments rising over the sacred memory of more than 250,000 Turkish martyrs and the areas where more than 250,000 British, French, Australian and New Zealand soldiers are buried, today tells the whole world about the value of peace. In the Gallipoli Peninsula Historical National Park there are 56 Turkish monuments and martyrs' cemeteries and 35 foreign cemeteries and memorials. Every year on 18 March and 24 April the Çanakkale land and naval battles are commemorated with ceremonies.

Çanakkale Martyrs' Memorial

It stands on Hisarlık Tepe, rising behind Morto Bay at the tip of the Gallipoli Peninsula. It was built in memory of those who fell in the Çanakkale battles. Its foundations were laid on 19 April 1954 and it opened to visitors on 21 August 1960. The reliefs on the legs of the main base were completed in 2002, and in 2004 changes were made to the ceremonial area and the symbolic cemetery. The monument, restored in 2005, took its final form in 2007 when a new martyrs' cemetery was built in its area.

The memorial, 41.70 m high, rises on four legs over an area of 625 square metres. Seen from a distance it looks like the letter "M" of Mehmetçik (the Turkish soldier). A Turkish flag in mosaic is worked into the memorial's ceiling.
To the left of the memorial's entrance, the symbolic martyrs' cemetery, built in 1992, was made for our martyrs who ran to Çanakkale from every corner of our country and gave their lives, their most precious possession. Just to the right of the cemetery's entrance gate are the words Mustafa Kemal wrote in 1934 addressed to the foreign soldiers, read on Anzac Day by the then Minister of the Interior Şükrü Kaya:

"You mothers who sent your sons to war from far-away lands! Wipe away your tears. Your sons are in our bosom. They are at peace and will sleep peacefully. Having given their lives on this land, they have now become our sons too."

Kaz Dağı National Park (Mount Ida)

In Kaz Dağı National Park, with its magnificent views, restful green spaces and many hot springs, you can feel the beauty of nature through mythological stories. In mythology we see that the World's First Beauty Contest, between Aphrodite, Hera and Athena, was held here. According to the story, when the gods gathered for the wedding of Thetis and Peleus, Eris (Discord), who had not been invited to the wedding, threw a golden apple to where Athena, Hera and Aphrodite were. On the apple was written "to the fairest".

An argument begins among the three goddesses: "I am the fairest". Zeus orders that Paris, who is on Mount Ida, be appointed judge to choose the fairest. The goddesses boast of their beauty before Paris and promise him gifts. Hera promises Paris kingship of the universe if he chooses her; Athena invincibility in war; and Aphrodite the love of Helen, the most beautiful of women. At this, Paris decides that Aphrodite is the fairest of the three goddesses and gives her the golden apple. The Kaz Mountains, in the north-west of the Anatolian peninsula, are the highest mountains of the Biga peninsula. They separate the Aegean Region from the Marmara Region. The Kaz Mountains lie within the provinces of Çanakkale and Balıkesir. Following the north of the Gulf of Edremit for 60–70 km in a north-east to south-west direction, the Kaz Mountains consist of Dede Dağı in the west, Kaz Dağı in the middle, Eybek Dağı in the east, and the Gürgen, Kocakatran, Küçükkatran and Susuz (Sakar Dağı) mountains in the north-east.

5 km beyond Evciler village, east of Bayramiç, is one of the Kaz Mountains' lovely picnic spots. In this area called Ayazma, where water flows abundantly, a beauty contest is held every year, echoing Paris's choice of the fairest among the goddesses in mythology. Kalkım is one of the loveliest settlements on the Kaz Mountains. Recently it has also taken off in tourism. Lovers of ecotourism, horse riding and trekking have discovered this lovely little town. You can get to Kalkım either via Edremit or via Çan and Yenice.

Assos (Ayvacık)

Assos is an ancient port city 87 km south of Çanakkale, within the boundaries of Behramkale village in the Ayvacık district. In Assos, also known as a centre of learning, Aristotle, the famous philosopher of antiquity, founded a school of philosophy and carried out important research in zoology, biology and botany. The ancient city, which has two entrances, east and west, was built on an old volcanic cone and consists of groups of buildings on terraces stretching south. A large part of the 4 km of walls surrounding the city still stands today.

The Temple of Athena on the acropolis is one of the oldest Doric temples in Anatolia, built in the Archaic period. Besides its magnificent view of the sea, this temple forms a cultural synthesis of the two shores of the Aegean, reflecting both Doric/Greek and Ionic/Anatolian features in its architecture. Among these historic remains on the acropolis, the Temple of Athena is the best place to watch the magnificent view that the Gulf of Edremit takes on at sunset. As you go down towards the sea from here, the agora (marketplace), the gymnasium (centre of intellectual and physical education), the theatre, the bouleuterion (city council building) and the necropolis (ancient cemetery) follow one another.

A large part of the 4,000-seat theatre, where tragedies and comedies were performed in antiquity, is preserved. Just at the northern corner of the acropolis is the single-domed mosque built in the 14th century by the Ottoman Sultan Murad I. The Ottoman-period bridge within the boundaries of Behramkale village stands entirely intact and is still in use. With its still unspoilt natural surroundings, its sea, its hotels and guesthouses, the long, clean beaches of Kadırga Bay and its village, Assos is a rare archaeological site that can meet the wishes of visitors of almost any age.

Yenice, Çanakkale

Yenice, founded at the foot of the Kaz Mountains, is Çanakkale's largest district. One of the district's most striking features is its vegetation. In the forests, owing to microclimate and growing conditions that change with altitude, there are different tree species and mixed stands formed by them. The forests of the area contain species that grow in Mediterranean, Black Sea and continental climates (Turkish red pine, black pine, oak species, chestnut, fir, hornbeam, beech, plane, alder, ash, lime, hazel).

The Yenice forests are also notable for the endemic Kazdağı fir (Abies equi-trojani) and rare species. The Kazdağı fir's homeland is Kaz Dağı. This fir species, which takes its name from the ancient city of Troy, is found only in this area. Yenice is an attraction for alternative tourism (thermal springs, outdoor sports, shooting and so on). The Asar area was declared a Tourism Centre by Council of Ministers decision no. 2007/11712 of 27.02.2007.
Some nature tourism takes place in the district.

The presence of roe deer, an endangered animal, and of wild trout are examples of the rich fauna of the area. Archaeological work in the area has found remains of the Trojans, the Hittites, the Kingdom of Pergamon, the Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire. There are also many historic remains on the Agonya plains, where the Trojans held horse races, and in the Asar Mountains, where Emperor Hadrian held a bear hunt in the 2nd century AD.

• Hadrian's Castle (Asar Kale)
• Küçük Hisarlık
• Baba Kale (Taban Kale)
• Çal Kale
• Üvecik Tepesi
• Kabalı Hisar Tepe
• Kabalı Kilise Patlağı
• Çırpılar Hisar Tepe
• Çınar and Seyvan villages

These are the ancient settlements in the district. Yenice's oldest settlement, in Seyvan village, stands out for the architecture of its wooden-roofed mosque known as Issız Cuma. Hiking, nature photography, paragliding and mountain biking are tourism activities available in the district. There is a 3-star hotel in the district centre and another in Kalkım. The district's total bed capacity is over 250. Çanakkale to Yenice is 90 km. It is reached by road.

Troy archaeological site

The site and remains of the ancient city of Troy are on a hillock dominating the plain at Hisarlık (ancient Pergamos), near Tevfikiye (Asarlık) village in the Erenköy (İntepe) municipality, at the southern entrance to the Dardanelles. It is 30 km from the centre of Çanakkale.
Both names used for the city go back much further than Homer. The epic was handed down from ancient times until it reached Homer. In Homer's Iliad both Troia and Ilios are used for the same place. The name Troia occurs 49 times in the Iliad and Ilios 106 times. The description "sacred Ilios" is common in the Iliad.

The less often used Troia is mentioned with descriptions such as "surrounded by strong walls", "with mighty towers", "with broad streets" and "windy". Troia is the shared name of the Bronze Age citadel and city at Hisarlık near the entrance to the Dardanelles and of the legendary city of King Priam destroyed at the end of the Trojan War. Troia was also called Ilios or Ilion. At Troia, Heinrich Schliemann, a wealthy amateur archaeologist, began excavations in 1870 to find the ancient city, setting out from Homer's Iliad. His aim was closer to treasure hunting than archaeology. He was looking for Priam's legendary treasure. In a pit beside the gate and ramp of the Troy II phase he did indeed find a treasure. He smuggled out the treasure, which experts later concluded was not Priam's treasure. After a long period when its whereabouts were unknown, the treasure turned up in Russia, at the Pushkin Museum.

This became the most popular story about Troia. Troia has been the subject of great controversy from the start; the debates in scientific circles continue today. At Troia, which caused deep divisions, the first scientific excavations were carried out long after Schliemann under the direction of Wilhelm Dörpfeld. But in these excavations too the city mound was turned upside down "to find something". With the excavations carried out by the Americans under Carl W. Blegen between 1932 and 1938, Troia began to be studied adequately from a scientific point of view. The excavations, which continue today, were directed from 1988 to 2005 by Manfred Korfmann on behalf of the University of Tübingen. Prof. Korfmann became so attached to Troia and its surroundings that he took the name Manfred "Osman" Korfmann and became a Turkish citizen.

After Prof. Korfmann's death in 2005, the excavation run by Prof. Dr. Ernst Pernicka and his team from the Department of Prehistory and Protohistory of the University of Tübingen was cancelled by a Council of Ministers decision in 2012. The handover work is to take place on 26–28 June 2013.

Gökçeada (İmroz)

The name of Gökçeada, which the ancient writer Pliny mentions as Imbrus or Imbros, changed from Imbros to İmroz in the Ottoman period. The island's name appears as İmroz in Piri Reis's Kitab-ı Bahriye. This charming Aegean island took the name Gökçeada on 29 July 1970. The island's earliest settlers are known to have been the Pelasgians. Miltiades attached the island to Athens in 500 BC. It remained under Athenian rule until Roman rule. Gökçeada, added to the lands of the Ottoman Empire by Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror in 1455, was under Greek occupation between 1922 and 1923. Under the Treaty of Lausanne of 1923 it was attached to the Republic of Türkiye on 22 September 1923.

Parion (Biga)

Parion is within the boundaries of Kemer village in the Biga district of Çanakkale province. Parion, a coastal city on the Sea of Marmara, is accepted as a city of the Troad, in the light of the data obtained, especially in the necropolis area, in the work carried out since 2005. Ancient Parion had important neighbours such as Lampsakos to the west, Priapos to the east and Skepsis to the south. Eusebius said that Parion was founded in 709 BC. There are three views on the origin of the name Parion. The first is that it comes from Paros, the second that it derives from Parius, son of Iason and Demetria, immigrants from Erythrai, and the last that the name comes from the Trojan prince Paris and means the city of Paris.

Parion became a member of the Delian League in 478–477 BC. In the Peloponnesian War that broke out between the Athenians and the Spartans in 431–404 BC, Parion sided with the Athenians. The city came under Persian rule again after the King's Peace of 387 BC. With Alexander the Great's defeat of the Persians at the Battle of the Granicus in 334 BC, a new era began in Anatolia. The Troad, which the Romans left to the Kingdom of Pergamon after the Peace of Apamea in 188 BC, was left to the Romans again in 133 BC on the death of its king, Antiochus III. Rome, aware of the city's importance, declared Parion a colony twice, the first time in the period of Julius Caesar or Augustus and the second in the period of Hadrian. It is thought that building activity accelerated after the city gained its status for the second time in the period of Hadrian.

The architectural decoration and reliefs of the theatre in particular, one of the city's most striking buildings, dated to the second half of the 2nd century AD, confirm this. Parion, a city with Christian communities from the 2nd century AD, did not lose its importance in the Byzantine period either, and was an important bishopric, as shown by the clergy named Eustathius (AD 312–330), Hesychius (AD 431) and Thalassius (AD 451) who served at Parion. At Parion, first mentioned by Herodotus and Xenophon and later by Strabo, İ. Akşit carried out a surface survey on behalf of the Çanakkale Museum in the 1970s. After this work, surface surveys were carried out in 1997 under Prof. Dr. Cevat Başaran, and from 2005 the first scientific excavations began in the city's southern necropolis. In later years work continued at the Roman Theatre, the Roman Bath, the Hillside Gate, the Odeion, the Hellenistic Tower and the Sounding Structure.

The Artemis of Parion

In the odeion, one of the areas excavated at Parion and among the city's important buildings, a marble statue in pieces was uncovered during work in 2012. According to the first findings, the statue of a clothed woman, dating to the 2nd century AD, with some pieces missing, is thought to be of the goddess Artemis because of the bow held in her left hand and the arrow tucked under the middle finger of her left hand, the leaping dog or hound placed on the stump on her left side, the deer or gazelle head in front of it, and probably the quiver on her back. The statue, about 1.70 m high and made of high-quality white marble, taking into account the upper body pieces probably destroyed in a fire, turns out to be an original composition in a group with no very close parallel among the statues of the goddess Artemis found so far. Because other pieces of the statue may still be found, the statue has been placed under protection and will be displayed in full after restoration.

The Centaur-Triton of Parion

The building identified as a theatre in surface surveys of the city of Parion, thanks to the hollow east of the acropolis, was first excavated in 2006. Besides many architectural elements found in the theatre, a Centaur-Triton(?) statue was found in the 2012 excavation season. It had been moved together with other blocks into the part of the theatre's stage building that could be called the actors' rooms. The head of the 130 cm high statue was found broken and has been repaired. The arms of the statue are broken and its lower part is missing. This unparalleled statue is thought to have been placed at the corners of the building's pediment. The statue is dated to the 2nd century AD.

Çanakkale Archaeological Museum (Merkez)

Museum work in Çanakkale began in Atatürk's time. It started in 1936 with the gathering of historic marble and stone works in Zafer Meydanı, and in 1965 the Museum Directorate was set up in the annexe of the church in the same square. The museum's collection began to take shape with the transfer to the Çanakkale Museum of part of the collection of Frank Calvert, who excavated many ancient cities of Çanakkale in the late 19th century and took most of the works he found abroad, with only a very small part staying in Türkiye, and with the bringing to Çanakkale of some of the Troia finds of Carl Blegen, who carried out the third period of excavations at Troia between 1932 and 1938.

The rich finds uncovered at the Dardanos Tumulus in 1959 became one of the most important discoveries in Çanakkale's history after Troia. The present museum building was planned as a result of the important finds at the Dardanos Tumulus and in the necropolis of the ancient city of Tenedos on Bozcaada. The new museum was completed and opened in 1984. The works of the museum in Zafer Meydanı were also moved to the new museum. The Çanakkale Museum displays, in chronological order, works from the ancient cities of Çanakkale and their surroundings. The museum holds 12,747 archaeological works, 15,237 coins and 2,714 ethnographic works.

Troia Hall

Works uncovered in the Troia excavations, which began with H. Schliemann in 1870 and were carried out under W. Dörpfeld in 1893, C. Blegen in 1932 and M. Korfmann in 1987, are displayed in chronological order. Troia, one of the first mound excavations in our country, is very important because it is a touchstone in archaeology for dating ceramics from the Early Bronze Age to the Iron Age (3000–1250). These ceramics show the development of ceramic technology between the Early Bronze Age and the Late Bronze Age. These works on display have appeared in thousands of publications and in international exhibitions, and form original groups of works known to the archaeological world.

Assos Hall

Finds from the excavations of the ancient city of Assos since 1980 are displayed. In this section, besides lekythoi, bowls and figurines of goddesses, a terracotta puppet with jointed arms and legs from a child's grave gives enlightening information about toys.

Dardanos Tumulus Hall

The Dardanos Tumulus, identified in 1959 within the boundaries of Çınarlı village in central Çanakkale, is important because it is the family tomb of the founders of the ancient city of Dardanos, the city of King Dardanos, who gave the region its name in antiquity. More than 300 archaeological objects found in the burial chamber are displayed in the hall. Among them are gold jewellery, stone and terracotta vessels, terracotta statues and inscribed bronze vessels.

Aphrodite statuette

It is the most important find from the Dardanos Tumulus. It is the earliest copy, made in the 1st century BC, of the "Aphrodite of Knidos" by Praxiteles, a 4th-century BC sculptor. The statue, showing the goddess of beauty at the bath, symbolises health and beauty. By depicting the goddess nude, the sculptor also showed the courage to assert freedom in art.

The Polyxena Sarcophagus

It was uncovered in 1994 in the excavation of the Kızöldün Tepesi tumulus in the Gümüşçay municipality of the Biga district. The sarcophagus is made of marble from Marmara Island. Designed like a house with a triangular tiled roof, the carvings on the sarcophagus show the sacrifice of Polyxena, daughter of King Priam, on the tomb of Achilles. Because of its features and the finds from the excavation, the sarcophagus is dated to the late 6th century BC.

Statue of Hadrian

After 133 BC Anatolia was attached to Rome and became a Roman province. Hadrian, Roman emperor in AD 117–138, also carried out building work and gave aid in Troia. This is the statue erected at Troia in memory of this aid. He is shown in armour.

Gelibolu Mevlevihane

The Gelibolu Mevlevihane was one of the 15 Mevlevi asitane (principal lodges) where dervishes were trained and underwent their retreat. Founded in the 17th century (probably before 1621), the Mevlevihane had the largest grounds and the most magnificent semahane (hall for the whirling ceremony) of these fifteen asitane. What survives of the buildings, within the Hamzakoy military area and close to the seashore, is the semahane–tomb and the portal. The founder and first sheikh of the Mevlevihane was Ağazade Mehmet Hakiki Dede, son of Kara Hasan Ağa, one of the Janissary aghas. After him, the Mevlevihane was known as the Ağazade Dergâhı. During the First World War, the Mevlevihane's last sheikh, Burhaneddin Dede, joined the Mevlevi regiment under the Fourth Army with seven dervishes and stayed in Damascus for three years.

The Mevlevihane, used as an ammunition store when Gelibolu came under enemy occupation, stood for a long time within a military area; it was bought by the General Directorate of Foundations in 1994, restored, and opened to visitors on 17 September 2005. Its use and supervision are now handled by the Gelibolu District Governorship. Mevlevihanes spread the Mevlevi order across the Ottoman lands. As well as meeting people's spiritual needs as centres of good conduct and wisdom in history, mevlevihanes also functioned as centres of culture and art.

At the Gelibolu Mevlevihane, the Çanakkale Governorship holds the event "The Balkan Geography Meets in Çanakkale" as part of the Şeb-i Arus ceremonies. The Association for the Protection of the Gelibolu Mevlevihane and the Promotion of Mevlevi Culture holds Sema ceremonies every month.

• Ayvacık
• Bayramiç
• Biga
• Bozcaada
• Çan
• Eceabat
• Ezine
• Gelibolu
• Gökçeada (İmroz)
• Lapseki
• Merkez (central district)
• Yenice