South of the small port town of Çanakkale, on the northwestern tip of Türkie, signs for “Truva” and “Troy” are beginning to appear more frequently. The bustle of modern life gives way to pastoral, and in half an hour you are already in the ancient city of Troy, which happened about 3,000 years ago.
A tall wooden horse greets you at the gate, while ruins are scattered around, with the Aegean Sea in the distance and the plains where the legendary Trojan War was fought.
“The aura is so strong that when Caesar visited Troy, he said, ‘Every stone has a name,'” says Rustem Aslan, a professor at Canakkale Onsekiz Mart University who spent 40 years excavating the UNESCO World Heritage site considered the legendary city.
Today Hisarlik – Turkish for “place of fortress”, the name of the hill on which the ruins lie – tells its history through the Troy Museum and the remains of architectural structures containing echoes of Homer’s great epic. Odyssey. For readers of legends, it’s a bit of a time travel experience.
“I find it very moving,” says Homer translator Emily Wilson, a professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She adds that “it’s still a windy town,” as Homer described it. “There’s such a flatness to it. a landscape where you can imagine huge armies marching across it,” she adds. “Even though the coastline has changed over 2,000 years, if you go and look at the water, you can still feel: here are these rivers, here is this section of this city that has been important several times and destroyed several times.”
Lost City of Troy
The site attributed to Troy actually contains the ruins of nine different cities that have risen and fallen over the centuries. Archaeologists assigned numbers to the layers: Troy 6 and 7 are believed to be associated with Priam’s Ilium, the setting of Homer. Iliad, where events led to Odyssey.
An aerial view of a UNESCO World Heritage-listed archaeological site that experts say is most likely the city of Troy.
Emirali Kokal, Alami
For over 2,000 years, these double works stood alongside other works of art. Epic Gilgamesh, That Bhagavad Gita, and the Bible—texts that have shaped the foundations of the world we live in today. Surprisingly, however, it was only recently that the hilltop outside Canakkale was recognized as Troy.
“Frankly, there is nothing that actually says this is Troy,” admits Eric Kline, professor of classical and ancient Near Eastern studies at George Washington University. “The later Greeks and Romans thought this was the case, and they called the site New Ilium – New Troy. Archaeologists are quite confident in this, mainly because there is no other better candidate. Geographically, it fits. Archaeologically, it fits. There are even destroyed layers that correspond to the time period (of the Trojan War).”
Over the past 160 years, several excavations have uncovered impressive ruins, including walls, passages, streets, an amphitheater and a layer of destruction containing burnt material, skeletons, arrowheads and slings, which some believe are remnants of the Trojan War.
About 90 percent of the main site has been excavated and, remarkably, Aslan points out, it has not been reconstructed, unlike sites such as Knossos on Crete. The ruins that visitors see here are exactly as they were found. “Nowhere in the Mediterranean are there such well-preserved Late Bronze Age ruins except Santorini, which was covered in ash,” Aslan says.
Although definitive evidence of the site’s Trojan heritage has yet to be discovered, as does Wilson, Aslan notes that a careful reading of the text provides clues to the hilltop’s legendary significance.
“If you put the Homeric epic on a landscape,” says Aslan, “he could not write in more detail: the two rivers, the islands, the mountains – still there, and still more or less the same as Homer described.”
(That’s why Turkey’s Black Sea coast is a Mediterranean alternative to visit.)
Ongoing archaeological excavations
The landscape tells the story, but Aslan, Kline and Wilson advise first visiting the Museum of Troy, which provides a detailed guide to the city’s layers and displays some 2,000 Bronze Age artifacts, with another 40,000 in storage. It is located next to ruins marked by a towering model of the famous Trojan Horse – the original, of course, is either lost to history or never existed at all.
The best place to start your visit to Troy is the Troy Museum, which features exhibits about the ancient city and artifacts from the archaeological site nearby.
Sener Dagasan, Shutterstock
After the museum, visit the site “where you can feel the aura,” says Aslan. The path through the ruins explores the layers of Troy, and the signs provide excellent explanations.
Kline suggests stopping in particular at Schliemann’s Trench: the 56-foot trench where, in 1871, Heinrich Schliemann—the first excavator at the site—began his excavations, infamously breaking through Troy 6 and 7, which are associated with the war, destroying some of the remains in the process. Those specifically interested in the Trojan myth, Cline says, should focus on these layers and the remaining “huge rocks and big walls.”
(How archaeologists found the lost city of Troy)
Where to stay and eat
Outside of the archaeological site, the town of Çanakkale makes for an easy weekend getaway. Along the busy pier is another facsimile of the Trojan Horse used in the 2004 film. Troy. A short ferry ride or drive across the channel, on the peninsula, museums house artifacts and stories from the battlefield of Gallipoli, the notoriously brutal battle that took place nearby during the First World War.
There are many hotels and boutiques for short stays. But booking close to the marina will keep you close to the action. Hotel Kule has a rooftop restaurant overlooking the ferry terminal. Next to the hotel is a winding pedestrian street lined with shops and seafood restaurants.
Liman Pasha Müdavim, an upscale restaurant overlooking the sea, serves dishes such as tank shish (fish kebab) or a more traditional Turkish version lamb kebab (lamb kebabs) and lively Sardale offers exciting regional fish and chips cuisine for travelers and locals looking for a quick bite.
Even in the city, discoveries continue to add further details to Homer’s story. After 3,000 years of history and 160 years of excavation, the sense of enchantment remains. As Aslan says: “There are still treasures.”
(Find out why this small Turkish island is one of the best places in the world to eat.)
How to get there
From Istanbul, Canakkale is approximately three and a half hours by car or four and a half hours by bus. From Izmir it is approximately four hours by car or five and a half by bus.
In Çanakkale, buses depart every hour from the Cuma Pazarı Dolmuş station, located under the overpass. Look for minibuses marked “Truva” or “Troy”. Trips cost about 30 liras one way and take about 30-45 minutes.
Nick Hilden is an experienced journalist and editor who has contributed to publications such as Vanity Fair, Washington Post, Rolling Stone, EsqAnd from afar. He is a producer Publishers Weekly series of interviews “Writers Talking About Writers.” Follow his work and travels on Instagram.