Our first stop was to be Mass at the Church of St Polycarp. The Church of St Polycarp is in Smyrna and was one of the Seven Churches of Asia Minor. We weren't able to get into the street the Church was on as the armed soldiers in the street wouldn't let us through. So we had to go down another street and walk a little to get to the Church.
We arrived at the Church but you would not pick it as a Church. It looked more like a block of home units. It had a high fence, a security camera at the gate, an intercom buzzer and a small sign next to the door that indicated the name of the Church. There was another little sign that had some Mass times on it but if you were walking past at a reasonable pace, it would be easy to miss.
We then walked around to another Church. We arrived at the second Church and again, it looked nothing like a Church but more like a place of residence. We didn't know the name of the Church. After Mass, Cardinal Pell found out the name. It was the Church of Santa Maria Di Giorgio. All this Church had on the front of the building was a street number and a very humble cross on the top that was difficult to see from the road because it was small and so high up.
Cardinal Pell said that there were only 45 priests in Turkey and I heard someone else say that there were 1200 Catholics in Smyrna.
We then went to another road-side diner for lunch and then got on the bus for the long drive to the Hotel in Cannakale. The Hotel we were staying in was in the Dardenelles. We thought we were able to see in the distance Anzac Cove but no one was really very sure. The sunset over the water was absolutely spectacular.
We had dinner while the sun was setting. It was beautiful! After dinner some of us tried to get on to the free wifi with no success. We went to bed instead!
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