2800 years ago, Homer, who was also from Turkey, wrote about the great 10-year siege of this ancient city and how it was finally captured with a Trojan Horse. All of this took place on the shores of modern Turkey just south of the passage that connects the Mediterranean with the Black Sea and Melek set up a short little road trip for us to visit it.
As great as the Iliad was most people thought it was made up by Homer until one of the early archaeologist, Heinrich Schliemann, found and started excavating the city in 1870. Since that crude attempt at digging for the past, Troy has been a treasure trove of information.
There have actually been nine different cities built on top of each other starting 5000 years ago at the dawn of human history. Melek asked why they would build on top of old cities instead of moving to another site. The answer is because this site was on a hill overlooking a protected bay and the strategic advantage this afforded 5000 years ago stayed the same through the ages.
I read that there was not much to see here, but I disagree. We walked around the site for well over an hour. They have lots of information about each era and what they have found over the last 150 years. In fact, the hardest thing to wrap your mind around is that Troy was starting out the same time as the first great civilizations around the world.
If the above is not enough to get you to visit then don’t forget about the Trojan Horse. They have one on site you can climb into and there is another one 45 minutes away that Brad Pitt gave after filming the movie Troy. If you come back on Thursday I will tell you about it and the rest of our road trip.