Troy

We were pretty excited to visit Troy, near Canakkale, and booked ourselves a day tour there.  Excitement quickly wore off in the heat and dust, and also partly due to some other individuals in our tour group.  And also because of the lady who nearly took my eye out with her sun umbrella, only to get it caught in my hair and keep walking even though I said "ow" loudly in her ear quite a few times.  As for the other individuals, ever wanted to spend hours on a bus with some middle aged ladies sporting hair extensions, fake nails, horrible east coast Australian accents, incredibly large handbags, and have them share their life stories with another couple on the bus, and therefore by default yourself because their voices are loud and carry all the way down the bus? Awesome.

Troy is touted as one of Turkey's best tourist attractions, and unfortunately it is just that, an overblown tourist attraction.  Schliemann did a great job of taking anything of worth out of Troy when he hunted for the famous, ancient city back in the day, and so all you see today are some ruins (that don't even come close to how magnificent other ancient cities in Turkey are), a rebuilt bit of wall, and busloads of other tourists.

I couldn't help myself, and had to get a photo with a replica Trojan horse! The original Trojan horse from the movie 'Troy' stands in the Canakkale town square by the way, free for everyone to see.

I am glad we went to see Troy as I would have forever had a fear that I'd missed out on something, but it's not a place I'd recommend anyone else to go necessarily.  There are much more beautiful ruins around, more on those in upcoming posts.  Anyway, here are just a couple of pictures for you to ponder over, enjoy!