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Alexandria Troas Review
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Alexandria Troas
- Category: Archaeological Sites
- Location: Troy
Fodor's Review:
Alexandria Troas, 20 mi from Troy, was built at the behest of Alexander the Great in approximately 330 BC. It became a wealthy commercial center and the region's main port. The city, called at one point Antigonia, surpassed Troy in its control over the traffic between the Aegean and the Sea of Marmara and was even considered a capital under the Roman and Byzantine empires. The seaside location that won it prosperity also invited plundering by raiders, however, and this led to its demise. St. Paul visited twice on missionary journeys in the middle of the 1st century AD, proceeding by land to Assos at the end of the second trip. In the 16th and 17th centuries, when the city was called Eski Stamboul (Old Istanbul), Ottoman architects had stones hauled from here to Istanbul for use in the building of imperial mosques, the Blue Mosque in particular. Visit today not so much for seeing the scanty remnants of the city's monumental baths and its aqueduct but for the setting: Alexandria Troas is tucked away in a deserted stretch of wilderness that you might very well have all to yourself. The ruins are in the middle of an olive grove, though much of the site itself was damaged by a fire in the summer of 2006, which blackened the stones. Some argue that it was started by villagers to create more space for planting trees.
The ruins are near the village of Dalyan, which can be reached by bus from Çanakkale or minibus from Ezine. The track leading to the ruins is quite bumpy. You can drive most of the way, but leaving your car at the beginning might be best; from the start of the path it's a 15-minute walk.
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