How to visit and what to see in the remains of Troy (Türkiye): schedules, prices

Scenario of The Iliad, the great work of Homer, Troy It is one of the best-known ancient cities in the world.

It was inhabited for about 4.000 years and, due to its location on the banks of the Dardanelles Strait, shows the first contacts between Central Anatolia and the Mediterranean coast.

For all this. in 1998 the Unesco included Troy on the list of Heritage.

How to visit the ruins of Troy in Türkiye

An visit to Troy during your trip to turkey can be combined very well with those nearby Gallipoli battlefields, scene of some of the fiercest campaigns of the World War I.

This is how you complete a good excursion from Istanbul for two or three days. being the most suitable place to take the city of Çanakkale, which is located on the Asian side of the Dardanelles, like Troy.

En Gallipoli y Troy you can start a route along the Aegean coast which passes through very interesting places such as Pergamon, Ayvalik, Izmir, Pamukkale, Aphrodisias, Priene, Mileto and the Temple of Didyma before reaching Bodrum.

All these places are registered on the list of the World Heritage of the Unesco or on the tentative list.

What is Troy and where is it?

The name of Troy It has held a very important place in culture for dozens of centuries, and has always been considered a special place due to its connections with mythology and literature.

From antiquity everyone wanted to make a pilgrimage to Troy, and so they did Emperor Xerxes on the way to invade Greece, and Alexander the Great a century and a half later on their way to conquer Asia.

Julio César and many others followed the same path.

This is the experience of visiting Troy, what to see

However, some visitors today are a little disappointed after the visit because it is true that the remains are not as spectacular as in other places. archaeological sites which are further south.

One of the reasons is that the city was not abandoned and for 3.000 years a city was built on top of the remains of the previous one, largely destroying them.

Furthermore, archaeologists have not reconstructed the main structures, as they have done in Ephesus o Aphrodisias, For example.

In the archaeological remains of Troy Nine different levels have been identified, most of which have different substrata and at least 46 of these have been documented.

The oldest, Troy I, goes back to the Bronze Age (3000-2500 BC) and the last, Troy IX, corresponds to the Roman age.

La Homeric Troy would correspond to Troy VIIA, that of the period 1275-1240 BC

El discovery of Troy by Schliemann at the end of the 19th century is one of the most attractive chapters in the history of archeology, since he identified the place using as a guide The Iliad, which he considered an almost historical document and not just a work of fiction.

The problem is that his excavation methods destroyed a lot of information, since he was really just an amateur archaeologist.

Lovers of history and literature will find in the visit of Troy one of the most exciting and lively places in the entire world.

How to get to the ruins of Troy from Istanbul

Troy It is located about 25 kilometers from Çanakkale and there is a service filled (minibuses) several times a day.

Another option, if you do not have your own transportation, is to hire a Troy excursion from Istanbul o from Canakkale.

In any case we do not recommend that it be a day trip from Istanbul because it would be very tiresome if we made the round trip plus the visit all in a row.

En Çanakkale there is a good hotel offer, restaurants and travel agencies; in Tevfikiye, in the village there next to the archaeological site, there are at least two clean guesthouses with restaurants.

With regards to duration of the visit to the archaeological site of Troy, you would have to reserve at least two hours, a little more if we include the Troy Museum, which opened in 2018.

To visit you can follow a itinerary marked with arrows and explanatory panels.

At the entrance there is a cafeteria area, book sales and toilets, and there was also a small museum whose collections have been moved to the new museum which is located a few hundred meters away from the archaeological site.

Reproduction of the Trojan Horse

The first thing you find when you start the visit is a reproduction of the famous Troy Horse.

Legend says that it was conceived by Ulises to introduce a group of Greeks into the enclosure of Troy, but this scene does not appear in The Iliad de Homer.

No one can resist getting on the horse and looking out the windows to have a photo taken from the outside.

The entrance to archaeological site of Troy is done by Eastern Gate, which is reached through a corridor between high walls.

It can climb up to a bastion of the wall, from where there are good views of the surroundings, and then pass through a part covered by a metal structure that protects the remains of brick walls from the era of Troy II and III.

A climb leads to one of the most important places in Troy, Greco Roman Temple of Athena, which rises above a bastion of Troy VI.

It was destroyed and rebuilt several times, and the Romans razed part of the acropolis to make a temple suitable for Athena Ilias.

A path descends along the western flank and passes by the vestiges of the fortifications of Troy I.

This is a walk through the Troy of The Iliad

In this part the enormous trench that he dug becomes visible Schliemann to quickly access the level that he considered corresponded to that of the Homeric Troy, which was the only thing that interested him.

One of the most spectacular structures is the paved ramp, which is 21 meters long and seven and a half wide, and it is known that it gave access to the Citadel of Troy II.

To the left you can see a sunken area, which is the place where Schliemann discovered what he called the Priam's Treasure.

This treasure is much older, dating back to the time of Troy II, and therefore could not belong to the king of Troy in the time narrated in The Iliad.

This treasure was a set of 1.200 pieces of jewelry that Schliemann He managed to take Greece without the consent of the Ottoman authorities, which he donated to the German emperor but disappeared when Soviet troops entered Berlin in 1945.

For half a century nothing was known about its whereabouts, but in 1991 it was discovered that it was in the deposits of the pushkin museum de Moscow.

The ramp leads to the Scaean Gates, a place that appears repeatedly in The Iliad.

Before crossing them, to the left you can see the remains of a palace complex from the time of Troy VI.

The itinerary now leaves walled enclosure and passes by the remains of a sanctuary, where archaeologists have found cult objects dedicated to the mysteries of Samothrace.

In this lower part of the enclosure there is also the roman odeon, bulletreion (the place where citizens' representatives who decided on public affairs met) and some hot springs.

Troy Museum: Hours

A few hundred meters from the entrance to the archaeological site, on the outskirts of the village of Tevfikiye, you can find new Museum of Troy.

Many of the pieces that previously kept the ancient museum of Troy in the enclosure and in the canakkale museum.

Here you can consult updated information on schedules and prices to visit the Troy museum.

Good part of the events reported in The Iliad they don't happen in the city ​​of Troy, but in its surroundings, so if you are very interested and have a little time, half a day or a whole day, you can explore this area in search of places that remember this epic.

This would also allow us to get to know some of the current villages that are built in the area.

It must be taken into account that, although this area is very sparsely inhabited, the landscape has changed a lot in recent centuries: the coastline has changed and the Scamander River, of importance in the epic story, has also modified its route.

We took an afternoon walking tour touring the Scamander plain, road to the village of Yenikoy.

This coastal area is made up of cliffs, so the houses are high up and only the port is at the edge of the sea.

Continuing towards the south we discovered a very beautiful stretch of coast, and very close we could distinguish the silhouette of the Bozcada Island.

How and where to see the tomb of Achilles in Troy

Our destination was a tomb which is historically considered the tomb of Achilles, place to which he made a pilgrimage Alexander the Great at their visit to Troy.

There are a good number of these mounds in the area, and many of them are traditionally attributed to heroes of The Iliad.

The one of Achilles It is easy to locate because it is located inland, but right in front of a rocky cape.

Obviously, this excursion can be done faster by car.

Schedules and ticket prices to visit Troy

The schedules to visit the ruins of Troy They are, from April to October, from 8,30 a.m. to 20 p.m., and from November to March, from 8,30:17,30 a.m. to XNUMX:XNUMX p.m., with last access one hour before closing.

El ticket price to visit Troy It is 27 euros and includes the audioguide.