Hellespont Swimming

Wilusa Travel Agency is the only and authorized company in Turkey to bring foreign swimmers to Hellespont Swim. This package programme also consists of Troy and Gallipoli tours. Wilusa Travel is the local, registered tourism company to organise this event in Turkey and SwimTrek is the world wide company to market and book clients to this event.

Mythology of Dardanelles

The name Dardanalles comes from Dardanus, mythical ancestor of nearby Troy. It was also called the Hellespont in ancient times. According to ancient writers, in mythology ,the name derives from Hele who fell from the back of the golden-fleeced ram while passing through the strait on the way to Colchis in the Black Sea. Despite unpredictable weather and swift surface currents, the Dardanelles has been a strategic water route and an object of conguest throughout history. Unlike the Bosphorus in İstanbul, there is no bridge today on the Dardanelles. In the 5 BC the Persian king Xerxes built a pantoon bridge which streched from Abydos to Sestos on his war against the Greeks. 

Hero and Leander

In mythology Hero and Leander were lovers. Hero, a priestess of Aphrodite, lived in Sestos, leander lived in abydos, on the other side of the Hellespont (Dardanelles). Every night, guided by a lamp placed by Hero, Leander swam across the strait to be with her. One night a tempest arose, the lamp was extinguished and Leander drawned; when Hero saw her dead lover she commited suicide.

The story is the subject of Christopher Marrow’s unfinished poem “Hero and Leander” and Lord Byron’s “The Bride of Abydos”. 

The winds are high on Helle’s wave
As on that night of stormy weather
When love, who sent, forgot to save
The young the beautiful the brave
The lonely hope of Sestos’ daughter

Actually this legend inspired Lord Byron to Swim the Hellespont in 1810. To commemorate this crossing he wrote a poem, “Written after swimming from Sestos to Abydos”