55km (34 miles) off the west coast of Geyikli Harbor; 50km (31 miles) southwest of Çanakkale
Off the northwestern coast of the Çanakkale peninsula are two idyllic island getaways, Gökçeada and Bozcaada, second only in popularity to the Princes' Islands in the province of Istanbul. The smaller of the two islands, Bozcaada, has the bigger role in mythology. Located opposite Troy, it was from the shelter of Bozcaada (also known as Tenedos, after Poseidon's grandson, Tenes) that Homer tells us the Greek fleet hid while staging the Trojan Horse offensive. What you'll find here today are the predictable remnants of the earlier Greeks, Venetians, and Ottomans, sparsely dotting a landscape that includes pristine stretches of beach and thermal springs. The absence of any villages, apart from the wharf, combined with the revival of a centuries-old legacy of viniculture, are what make this island so much like the original paradise. It doesn't hurt that guests get to hole up in restored Greek stone mansions set amidst the rolling landscape of vineyards (the island economy also relies, nominally, upon red poppies, used in jams and sherbet), dotted by graceful modern windmills. The island packs in visitors to the gills for the annual grape harvest festival on July 26 and 27, when the island population swells from 2,500 to 15,000.
Meanwhile, Gökçeada (aka Imroz), or the "Island of the God of the Seas," while also appealing in its own right, requires an additional, even heroic, effort to access (1 hr., 45 min. by boat only 2-3 times per week). Assuming our estimable readers have limited time, such a stopover will absorb much of the time required to visit the other stellar destinations we write about in this book! Therefore, regrettably, we don't cover Gökçeada here.
