Seven social media influencers from seven countries on Wednesday visited Turkey's northwestern Canakkale province to mark the Year of Troy.
The Culture and Tourism Ministry declared 2018 as the Year of Troy to celebrate 20 years of Troy's addition to the UNESCO World Heritage List.
The bloggers, vloggers and instagrammers from the U.S., Germany, Australia, China, India, Iran and Italy shared pictures and videos of the Gallipoli Peninsula, Canakkale Martyrs' Memorial, the ancient city of Troy, Bozcaada (Tenedos), the ancient city of Alexandria Troas and Assos.
All of them were invited to the country by Turkey.
They include Goldie Berlin, Sylvia Matzkowiak, Hoda Rostami, Dave Jones, Harjinder Kukreja, Josh Bender and his wife Jacinta Bender, and Vanessa Ziletti.
Also travel bloggers in Turkey, Tugce Yilmaz Ozbilgi and Murat Zafer Ozbilgi, were present at the celebration.
Mayor of Ezine district Ali Ikram Tuna said: "For the promotion of our district, we hosted social media influencers in our district."
Kukreja from India said people in his country did not really know about the region, and added: "But we are very happy with the history of the region and the hospitality of the local people."
Stating that there were many areas worth visiting in the city, Kukreja said he was especially impressed by Gallipoli.
Bender from Australia also said that he loved the region and Canakkale and he was going to recommend it to all his followers.
Troy, located on the mounds of Hisarlik overlooking the Turkish Aegean coastal plain, is one of the most famous archeological sites in the world, with its 4,000-year history.
The city was long-thought to be purely mythical until the groundbreaking work of Heinrich Schliemann, a German amateur archeologist who began uncovering the site in the 1870s.
Troy was immortalized by the ancient Greek poet Homer in his epic The Iliad, telling the story of the last year of the decade-long Trojan War.
