In the afternoon, I arrived at the Hirsirlik Hotel on the outskirts of Troy.
Hisirlik means ‘old ruin’. An appropriate place then to lay my bones.
It’s run by the Askin family – three brothers – and Mustapha Askin was to be my guide.
I started off with the modern and beautifully presented museum just across the road. ‘Go and do that first’ said Mustapha, ‘then when we’ve got rid of these tour groups we’ll drive down to the site.’
A six floored cube of Corten and plate glass. Excellent and informative and importantly, air conditioned. 
There were some lovely pieces of delicate jewellery, but Schlieman’s selling off to Athens of the big treasure still rankled… understandably. 
The stories about that treasure and where it had wound up and the secret agents who had tracked it down, are worthy of a Dan Brown thriller.
Back at the hotel they were inundated with bus loads of Spanish tourists. I sat out on the roadside and watched as they dispatched over two hundred covers in the space of an hour an a half.  So busy I went and got my own beers from the fridge and wrote them down. 
Then just as I was dropping off, Mustapha eating off a plate with a fork, shouts ‘Okay, let’s go!’ Trained as an engineer, he’s been guiding here for 45 years.
He made sense of the place that I would never have understood – despite my interest –  merely by walking around. 
I won’t bore you – dear reader – with our conversations but it was informative and gently revealing, dispelling many questions I have had over the years. 
He agreed with me that most archaeologists were too scientific and would not embrace the myth and the story that was so central to most people. 
The whole romance of the place was lost to them. So I was somewhat pleased that he hadn’t heard of John Gaskin and was unaware of his mention in his book.      
I couldn’t let my copy go but I promised to send him one.
We stood where Hector – the real hero of the Iliad – had fallen. We looked out at the burial mounds across the Hellespont where the big Greek names lay still. We discussed the importance of the site to the Romans and how Virgil had made it their  own with The Aeneid. 
I took his photograph and he asked if he looked okay?  I said he looked very handsome but perhaps it was time to change the photograph on his official guide badge.
The truth is that no-one really knows the truth. About the connection between the myth and the physical site, no-one can honestly say. 
But, the site exists and its important location for trade between East and West is obvious, both overland and by sea. The square sailed ships couldn’t enter the Hellespont unless the wind was right and were sometimes delayed for weeks. The caravansai all stopped here to meet them from their treks from the east.
The book too exists with its 16,000 lines of prose. And anyone who has read it feels the pull to believe and be part of the story.
To come here is to make a pilgrimage of sorts and as with any experience, be it religious or secular, you need a good guide.