“You’re gonna see a very interesting place, it’s a sunken city.” Sunken cities are especially interesting to explore, but would there still be people living there? Or would the place be abandoned to its terrible destiny; its remains struggling between two worlds: the ethereal atmosphere and the liquid sea. My mind was lost in such speculation when we arrived at the next village, Kalekoy, how is known in Turkish the ancient Lycian city of Simena. read here

After our day in Sardis talking about invasions, money, and the ancient religion, we needed a place to rest. Firat took the road to Çeşme, a coastal town in Izmir Province. The scenery passing the car window mixed mountains, plains, and soon, the sea. We arrived quite late and the evening was already becoming a dark night. Moreover, Firat was in a rush: that night the football team he supports was playing Fenerbahce, and this was something very important to him, almost like a lover without a body or face, he was, truly, what we might call, a fanatic.

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://helenycampoy.com/2018/08/22/sirince/

To be honest, the place I loved the most was the library. I walked along the corridor imagining the papyri and parchments rolled up on the shelves made of stone. Each niche was protected from light and carefully ventilated. I leant against the wall, closed my eyes, and let my mind fly…crossing thousands of years. The scholars studying at wood tables, or walking, organising and cataloguing all the volumes. Then I felt the devastation of how the entire stock of volumes moved from Pergamum to Alexandria were lost in the great fire

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://helenycampoy.com/2018/08/22/pergamon/

had enjoyed my time in Troy for many reasons. The first was my taste for Ancient History and Greek civilisation. The second was the Helen myth; the Spartan princess over whom kings and princes fought. My own name is Heleny, so, out of curiosity, I searched for the meaning, and, of course, the answer was: Heleny is a variation of Helena (Greek). Following the trail on the Internet, the next aspect to discover was the meaning of the name itself. Some scholars consider Helena a variant of the Greek word that means “torch”. A further possibility is Helena derives from the Greek ‘Selene’, goddess of the moon. I definitely preferred the latter.

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://helenycampoy.com/2018/08/22/ottomabridge-greektemple-baklava/

My next destination was Troy or Wilusa as the Hittites called the mythical place where Paris and Helen lived their love. The city was a central piece of Homer’s Iliad. The reason Menelaus of Sparta, supported by Agamemnon of Mycenae, went to fight, to recover his honour or to die. And no one would ever forget the horse – the Greek’s gift to the Trojans that supposedly led to the city’s downfall. Were all the words written by Homer, of events in Troy about 500 years previously, true? Was Troy an allegory or a real city? Was Helen the most beautiful woman in the world, or simply a representation of how the female was seen in the Bronze Age? I don’t have an absolute answer to these questions. Few people claim to do so.

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://helenycampoy.com/2018/08/22/troy/

I could not hold back my tears, as I truly ‘saw’ the waste of young lives…people dying before they even had the opportunity to live. Fırat says that each one who dies takes a smile with him, the pain is for those who stay. I wholeheartedly agree; it is always difficult

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://helenycampoy.com/2018/08/22/facing-death/

I was stepping into an unpredictable, challenge, and a bloody moment in the story of WWI. I was about to visit places were hundreds, thousands, of young men died fighting in a war; many without even understanding the reasons behind it.

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://helenycampoy.com/2018/08/22/a-wwi-battle-field/

It was surprisingly easy for me, as a non-muslim woman, to enter the mosque. There are many people who are worried about doing so, having heard so many biased stories about Islam and the ‘kind of person’ who practises the religion. I came with my head covered, and in silence. We were careful to make sure that it was not prayer time, and I simply observed discretion – little different from how you would enter a church or synagogue, really – the key is simple: respect.

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://helenycampoy.com/2018/08/22/snow-and-mosques/

“Travel makes one modest, you see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.”

There are numerous ‘bridges’ throughout the world; some are made by man, others by nature; some cross spaces, others link cultures. Turkey is one of these bridges; it unites West and East, bringing from each to the other the possibility of knowledge and integration.

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://helenycampoy.com/2018/01/21/young-old-country/