June 25, 2026
It isn't very far from Istanbul to Çanakkale, a seaport city in northwestern Turkey on the Dardanelles Strait where it connects to the Aegean Sea. Çanakkale is the main base for visits to the ruins of the ancient city of Troy.
Visitors arriving via the marina are greeted by this impossible-to-miss version of the Trojan horse, a key figure in the epic poem the
Aeneid by the Roman poet Virgil. There is no archaeological evidence that a giant wooden horse was ever built and/or used to trick the Trojans during wars that occurred around the late 13th or early 12th century BC. However, Virgil's story about a giant wooden horse, written more than 1,000 years after the war, has been passed down for over 2,000 years and has helped preserve the memory the Trojan War.
According to legend, the war was started by the abduction of a beautiful woman, Helen of Troy. But the Greeks were also interested in Troy's wealth, and after fighting for ten years and failing to conquer the city, they came up with a devious plan of hiding soldiers inside a large wooden horse and leaving the horse in front of the city gates, then supposedly sailing away in their ships. The next morning, the Trojans wheeled the horse inside the city walls and began celebrating their victory. After everyone got drunk and felll asleep, the Greeks climbed out of the horse, opened the city gates, and let in their army, which had not sailed away after all. The Greeks plundered the city and set it on fire. The story is retold in the American movie
Troy (2004), starring Brad Pitt as the Greek hero Achilles. This model horse was used in that movie and has been on display in the marina since 2004.
Çanakkale has certainly figured out how to capitalize on Virgil's Trojan horse story. Without it, the city might not be
quite as popular a tourist destination as it is now.
