Gallipoli Peninsula: What the Anzac Narrative Leaves Out

On May 19, 1915, roughly 42,000 Ottoman troops attacked 17,000 ANZAC soldiers defending the beachhead. The Ottomans suffered around 13,000 casualties in a single day, including 3,000 killed. A formal truce was arranged afterwards so they could collect their dead. That scale of loss, on a single day of fighting on a narrow strip of Turkish land, is almost never part of the Anzac commemoration story that dominates how most visitors arrive at this peninsula. Coming here with only the Allied perspective in mind means missing half of what makes the place so affecting.

The Gallipoli Peninsula (Gelibolu Yarımadası in Turkish) juts into the Dardanelles strait in northwest Turkey, about 300 kilometres southwest of Istanbul. The nine-month campaign of 1915 ended in an Allied withdrawal that the Ottomans, rightfully, considered a defensive victory. For Australians, New Zealanders, and to a lesser extent Britons, Irish, and French, it became the defining event of national identity. For Turks, it is the moment when Mustafa Kemal, then a colonel, rose to prominence and began the trajectory that would make him the founder of the modern Turkish republic. Both stories are on the peninsula, and a good guide will take you to both.

What to Know Before You Go

Anzac Day logistics matter more than most guides admit. The April 25 Dawn Service at Anzac Cove draws tens of thousands of pilgrims each year. If you plan to attend, you must register for an individual attendance pass in advance. Without a pass, you will not be admitted to the commemorative sites. The site closes to general visitors the afternoon of April 24 and does not reopen until after the service concludes. Private vehicles are prohibited from travelling to Lone Pine, Chunuk Bair, and the 57th Regiment Memorial during the event period. Bag searches and airport-style security screening are standard.

If you are coming outside Anzac Day, the peninsula is significantly more manageable and, frankly, more conducive to reflection. Crowds thin to almost nothing by October.

Getting there from Istanbul: the standard route is approximately 4-5 hours by road. Pamukkale Turizm and other bus operators run regular services from Istanbul’s Esenler bus terminal to Gelibolu or Eceabat, with tickets in the $13-20 range and journey times around 3.5 hours. Alternatively, drive via the E80 motorway to Silivri, then south on the D555 to the peninsula. Car ferries operated by Gestaş cross the Dardanelles hourly between Çanakkale (on the Asian side) and Eceabat (on the European peninsula side), taking about 25 minutes. The ferry is cheap, reliable, and gives you a river-level view of the strait that the armies were trying to force open.

Many visitors base themselves in Çanakkale, which has better hotel infrastructure, and ferry across to the peninsula for day visits. This works well.

Where to Go

Anzac Cove is the landing beach, marked with a low stone monument and a small car park. The beach itself is narrower than most people expect from photographs. Stand here and look up at the ridge above and it becomes immediately clear why the landing was catastrophic: men climbed directly into defensive fire from elevated positions they could not see.

Lone Pine is a large Australian memorial cemetery and the site of some of the fiercest close-quarters fighting of the campaign. The lone Aleppo pine tree growing here is descended from a cutting taken from the original tree that survived the battle; it was grown in Australia and returned to the peninsula. The cemetery contains the graves of 1,167 soldiers and commemorates nearly 4,000 more with no known graves.

Chunuk Bair is the high ground the ANZAC forces were trying to seize and never successfully held. The New Zealand memorial here gives the best view of the Dardanelles and the Asian coast. On a clear day, you can understand the entire strategic logic of the campaign from this single hilltop.

Kabatepe Museum (Tarihi Milli Park Müzesi) near Eceabat holds a significant collection of artefacts including uniforms, weapons, personal letters, and unexploded ordnance. The museum treats both sides with equal seriousness, which gives it a quality that single-nation memorials cannot match.

The Turkish memorials at Chunuk Bair and the 57th Regiment Cemetery deserve as much time as the ANZAC sites. The 57th Regiment was effectively ordered to die holding the ridge on April 25, 1915. Mustafa Kemal’s famous order to his troops was: “I am not ordering you to attack. I am ordering you to die. In the time that passes until we die, other troops and commanders can come forward and take our places.” The entire regiment was wiped out.

Gelibolu town at the northern tip of the peninsula is a working fishing town largely unconcerned with battlefield tourism. The fish market here is the most locally used part of the town. The Piri Reis Museum in Gelibolu honours the Ottoman cartographer who made the first known map to show the Americas, in 1513.

Eating

In Eceabat, several small restaurants serve standard Turkish food (kebab, pide, mezes) at honest prices. The ANZACs Restaurant near the ferry dock is the most obvious tourist-facing option and is fine if you want proximity to the ferry. For a better meal, take the ferry to Çanakkale and eat along the waterfront, where there are proper fish restaurants serving the Dardanelles catch at mid-range prices (around 150-250 Turkish lira for a main course as of 2025, though lira pricing shifts with exchange rates).

In Gelibolu, the fish market and surrounding restaurants are the right choice for lunch. Sardine-style preparations and grilled sea bream are standard.

Staying

Çanakkale is the practical base. Hotels here range from budget guesthouses to mid-range business hotels. The ferry crossing to the peninsula takes 25 minutes and runs all day.

On the peninsula itself, Eceabat has several small hotels and guesthouses aimed at battlefield tourists. Rooms are basic but adequate. Booking ahead is essential in the weeks around Anzac Day; the rest of the year you can generally find something on arrival.

Camping is possible at designated sites within the Gallipoli Peninsula Historical National Park outside of the Anzac Day period.

Best Time to Visit

Late September and October combine good weather, minimal crowds, and the full suite of site access. Spring is beautiful but busy in April around the commemoration. July and August are hot and dry.

The one thing no guide can fully prepare you for is the scale of the cemeteries relative to the landscape. There are 31 Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemeteries on the peninsula. Walking between several of them in a single afternoon, through scrubby hillside terrain under a clear sky, is a different experience from reading about the campaign. Bring water, wear proper shoes, and give yourself more time than you think you need.