Çimenlik Castle, the Nusret Minelayer and Kilitbahir Fortress: Guarding the Narrows

Ten years after conquering Constantinople in 1453, Sultan Mehmed II (Mehmed the Conqueror) turned his attention to the southern maritime approach to his new capital. At the exact point where the Dardanelles Strait pinches to its narrowest width of 1,250 metres with a fierce four-knot surface current, he constructed two facing artillery fortresses in 1462 so that heavy bronze cannons firing from both shores could seal the waterway completely: Kale-i Sultaniye (Çimenlik Castle) on the flat Asian shore at the mouth of the Sarıçay river, and Kilitbahir ("Lock of the Sea") directly opposite at the foot of the European cliffs.

1. Çimenlik Castle & The Çanakkale Naval Museum (5 Minutes South of the Ferry Pier)

Surrounded by a lush green park right in the centre of Çanakkale Town, the Naval Museum complex holds two essential attractions side by side:

• The Full-Scale Replica of the Minelayer TCG Nusret: moored at the pier right inside the park, you can walk across the gangway onto the exact 1:1 reconstruction of the 36-metre German-built Ottoman minelayer Nusret. Under the cover of darkness on the morning of 8 March 1915, Captain Hakkı Bey and mine-commander Nazmi Bey laid a secret line of 26 contact mines parallel to the Asian shore in Erenköy Bay; ten days later on 18 March 1915, those 26 mines sank the battleships Bouvet, HMS Irresistible and HMS Ocean and crippled HMS Inflexible, forcing the Allied fleet to abandon its naval attempt to force the straits.
• Inside 1462 Çimenlik Castle: cross the moat bridge through the outer 11-metre-thick walls (where an unexploded 380mm British naval shell from the battleship HMS Queen Elizabeth remains lodged directly in the stone wall) to tour the 30-metre central rectangular keep (Başkule), Sultan Mehmed II's courtyard mosque and the row of 19th-century Krupp coastal artillery guns.

2. Kilitbahir Fortress & Namazgah Bastion (10 Minutes Across the Water by Ferry)

Hop onto a passenger ferry or small Kilitbahir motorboat from Çanakkale Pier for a 10-minute ride across the narrows to Kilitbahir. Built on a unique three-leafed clover (trefoil / heart-shaped) plan rising seven storeys high inside a triangular outer curtain wall, Kilitbahir Castle has been superbly restored into a museum of Ottoman fortress life. Right beside it along the shore stretches the earthen Namazgah Bastion (Namazgah Tabyası), where 26 vaulted stone bonnets sheltered the heavy guns, including the legendary cannon manned by Corporal Seyit (Seyit Onbaşı), who carried a 215-kilogram artillery shell on his back up the iron steps when the ammunition hoist broke on 18 March 1915.