Continuing my seemingly endless adventures of non-stop traveling with my ability to work remotely, I based myself in the fascinating city of Istanbul in Türkiye for a month, living in a hostel with a wonderful community of friends from around the world, working by day and exploring the chaotic streets and eating my way through the city by night. On the weekends, I made a concerted effort to explore as much of the area as possible - Istanbul is the largest city in Europe (even though I consider Türkiye to be in Asia, given that much of its land mass is on that continent) which means there's SO much to see.
When researching day trip options from Istanbul, I came across Troy, the ancient city on which Homer's legendary The Iliad is based. Undiscovered until only 1869, this fascinating place is still undergoing excavation; in fact, experts predict another 100-200 years of painstaking excavation work will be required to properly uncover this incredible city.
Day Tour to Troy from Istanbul
You can visit Troy yourself, or you can join a guided tour. I highly recommend a tour as the fantastic tour guides know so much about this place and the excavation work. I joined a GetYourGuide tour to visit the Ancient City of Troy which picked me up at 7:00am in Istanbul for a four-hour drive down to Eceabat where we had lunch with the group. Then, we took a beautiful ferry ride across to Çanakkale on the Asian side of Türkiye where a further thirty-minute drive brought us to Tevfikiye which is where the ancient city of Troy is located (google maps link). We returned the way back we came.
The pros of this tour were that everything was arranged for us including lunch, transport, entrance fees and a wonderful tour guide. The con was eight hours on a bus in one day! I would recommend doing a two-day tour which includes a night in Eceabat and another day trip to the battlegrounds of Gallipoli from World War I.
Is this really Troy?
Yes. Extensive research about the location based on all available materials and evidence point to this being the true location of Troy. Interestingly enough, there are actually nine cities of Troy, each expanding on the Troy before it and built over thousands of years. This is evidenced by the different styles of bricklaying and architecture. Experts reckon Troy XII is the one featured in Homer's The Iliad as it shows the signs of strengthened infrastructure in preparation for attack. The nearby ocean was the main source of wealth, bringing ships on the winds who traded prosperously with the inhabitants of Troy.
The ancient city of Troy has a replica of the Trojan Horse, and tells the tale of the epic Trojan War. While legend goes that the war was fought over the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen, truth be told it was much more likely to be about money, given Troy's wealthy and prosperous history. More fun to believe the legends, though!
