Alexandria Troas and Assos
May 1st 2023
Waving goodbye to Istanbul today and heading to our first biblical site, Alexandria Troas. To get there we had to cross the Dardanelles but we were able to use a new bridge, and the first, built recently over the Dardanelles instead of a ferry.
Alexandria Troas was a huge Roman city in Paul’s day and functioned as the first port protecting the Hellespont (Dardanelles) western sea entrance. This was a port serving the famous ancient city of Troy.
St Paul was in Alexandria Troas at least twice. This is where he had a vision telling him to go to Macedonia during his second missionary journey (Acts 16:8-10), and also near the end of his third missionary journey when his preaching went on and on and put Euticus to sleep causing him to fall out of a window (Act 20:5-10…. I encourage Craig to keep it a little shorter than that!)
At this site we explored the harbor area and found many Roman columns from the stoa (covered area of Roman shops) on the far side of what had been the inner harbor. In our pictures you can see many large ships in a line waiting to enter the Dardanelles and sail through to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea.
Next we visited Assos (Acts 20:12-14). On the way, between Troas and Assos, there is a stretch of Roman road (Via Tauri) well over 2000 years old, that is the very road Paul walked on his way to Assos. At the Assos archeological site one can pick up the road again as it enters the western gate of the city. This gate area is still very much intact and then leads to the lower city agora and temple. A beautiful site set above a harbor that is directly across from the Greek island of Lesbos. Craig did his first drone flying of the trip here and all went well!!
We are staying the night at little hotel set right on the water. Tomorrow we will see Pergamon and Sardis, two of the seven churches mentioned in the book of Revelations.
