The pocket watch and the Atatürk statue
The giant bronze marks the morning of 10 August 1915 when a pocket watch stopped the shrapnel that should have killed Mustafa Kemal.
AlasdairW — CC BY-SA 3.0 · New Zealand Defence Force from Wellington, New Zealand — CC BY 2.0 · New Zealand Defence Force from Wellington, New Zealand — CC BY 2.0 · New Zealand Defence Force from Wellington, New Zealand — CC BY 2.0
On the morning of 10 August 1915 a shrapnel fragment hit an Ottoman colonel called Mustafa Kemal square in the chest, struck the pocket watch he was carrying and stopped there. Two centimetres deeper and Turkish history takes another road, which is why the towering Atatürk statue that appears in every photograph of the peninsula stands on this summit. The hill itself, 261 metres up, is the highest ground the Allies ever held at Gallipoli; they kept it for two days and never got it back. What you find today is spread across a bare hilltop: the bronze statue raised in 1993, a row of stone panels telling the battle in Turkish, then the New Zealand national memorial, an obelisk carved with more than 850 names of men who have no known grave, and beside it a small cemetery holding 632 burials of which only ten could be identified. The trenches of both sides have been restored where they were dug, and in places only a few metres separate them, which explains the fighting better than any plaque. The view is the widest on the peninsula: the Anzac coves and the Aegean on one side and the Dardanelles on the other. Be honest with yourself, though: there are no halls and no museum, and anyone cold to military history will be done in half an hour and leave impressed by the panorama rather than the monuments. From Çanakkale allow about an hour: the Gestaş ferry to Eceabat takes roughly 25 minutes (a car is around 700 TL one way in 2026, and the tariff moves every few months), then a paved, winding road via Kabatepe, another 30 to 45 minutes. The 1915 Çanakkale Bridge is the alternative for ferry-haters but adds time. Every Gallipoli day tour stops here, and a tour is the better choice if you want someone to tell the story in English while you stand in the trenches. For families: the main plaza is paved and fine for a pushchair, but the trench paths are dirt and the drop-off at the edges is steep. There is no shade at all; in August heat bring a hat and water, though the wind never really stops and takes the edge off. In winter the summit is bitterly cold and cloud can swallow the very view you came for. Avoid 25 April and 10 August unless the ceremonies are the point; roads close and the hilltop fills. Combine it in one day with Anzac Cove, Lone Pine and the Kabatepe museum.
The giant bronze marks the morning of 10 August 1915 when a pocket watch stopped the shrapnel that should have killed Mustafa Kemal.
Both sides' lines are restored where they were dug, and their startling closeness explains the battle better than any book.
From the New Zealand obelisk you look over the Anzac coves and the Aegean, and on the other side the Dardanelles.
Conkbayırı, Gallipoli Peninsula Historic Site, Eceabat
If time is short, Anzac Cove and Lone Pine are closer and easier, but Chunuk Bair is the one spot where you see the whole peninsula at once, and the pocket-watch story is told where it happened. Half an hour is enough for the uninterested, and the view alone repays the winding road.
Driving is easy: ferry to Eceabat then about 40 minutes on a paved road, and the plaza takes a pushchair. A tour is better if you want the story told in English at the trenches and would rather not drive hill roads, but it keeps its own timetable and will not leave early when the children have had enough.