HISTORY and ACORNS

We have had a very long day, and are now snuggled in our cozy little room at the Niazlihan Hotel in a small Turkish costal village called Assos.  The hotel used to be a huge acorn processing warehouse where the people took oak acorns out of the shells and crushed them for dyes used to color leather.  Then they shipped them to Greece.  We are on the Aegean Sea and just finished a fresh sea bass dinner, caught today in front of the hotel.  The hotel is stone, our rooms are made out of stone, and it is quite the charming place.
We had a full day of travel from Istanbul, with "tea stops".  We were headed for a ferry boat and crossing the Dardanells to Troy.  On the way we stopped to visit the Gallipoli Battle grounds where the "father of modern Turkey", Mustafa Ataturk, beat the allied troops in one of the sadest, bloodiest, and largest number of casulties of WWI. You may remember a young Mel Gibson in the starting role of the movie.  But, seeing the battle scenes is very sobering. We also visited the ANZAC beach cemetery, where so many Aussies and New Zealanders died.
It has rained off and on all day, but we trooped on to Troy, once believed to only have exsisted in Homer's poem.  There is quite an excavation spot there and some of the remenants of this ancient time go back 5000 years.
To get to this little town on the Aegean, we took some steep, very narrow, winding roads with hair pin curves.  We had to park up the hill and walk into town! It was almost dark when we got here, so hopefully, I can take some photos in the am.  We are facing the island of Lesbos, but I think the Turks call is another name now.  You know those crazy Greeks and their mythology!