4 Best Sights in Gallipoli, The Sea of Marmara and the North Aegean

The stunningly situated memorial here bears the names of some 5,000 Australian and New Zealand soldiers, buried in unknown graves, who were killed at Gallipoli during the grueling eight-month World War I campaign to defeat the Ottoman forces. Savage hand-to-hand fighting took place on the battlefield where the cemetery was established—thousands were killed on both sides here in four days of fighting—and seven Victoria crosses, the highest award given by the British government for bravery and usually quite sparingly distributed, were awarded after the Battle of Lone Pine. This is the most affecting of all the Anzac cemeteries, and the epitaphs on the tombstones are very moving.

Letters from soldiers on both sides of the Gallipoli tragedy are among the most moving of the objects at this interpretive center, which also displays uniforms, weapons, and other findings from the battlefields. An 11-part, hour-long, immersing simulation of the Gallipoli campaign—which some have criticized as being too focused on "entertainment"—completes the experience.

The cape on the southernmost tip of the Gallipoli Peninsula has a massive, four-pillared memorial to Turkey's World War I dead. No one knows how many fell in battle, though estimates suggest there were around 250,000 Turkish casualties, including at least 85,000 deaths. If you take the ferry from Gallipoli to Çanakkale, look for the memorials to the campaign carved into the cliffs. The large one at Kilitbahir reads: "Stop, O passerby. This earth you tread unawares is where an age was lost. Bow and listen, for this quiet place is where the heart of a nation throbs."

The goal of the Allies was to occupy this strategic location overlooking the Gallipoli Peninsula. They failed, and Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) became a hero and went on to establish the secular republic of Turkey. It was here that he told his soldiers, "I order you not just to fight, but to die." All the men of one of his regiments were wiped out, and he himself was saved miraculously when a bullet hit the pocket watch that was over his heart—a moment commemorated with a huge statue of Atatürk here—but the line held. The hilltop holds Turkish trenches, a cemetery, and the New Zealand national memorial and has good views of the peninsula and the Dardanelles Strait.