Does Mohamed Kachir still have that framed photo of actor Russell Crowe in his Roman general getup from Gladiator in the living room of his mud-brick house in Aït Benhaddou, Morocco?
Or has The Odyssey star Matt Damon taken the Kiwi actor’s place?
I like to be on a mission when I travel, which is why set-jetting is among my favourite trip inspirations. I love going places where my favourite films and shows were set or filmed, from British series Coronation Street, to wine country road trip saga Sideways.
No mistaking Iceland’s black beach as Hades
As I watched The Odyssey, one location was unmistakable: the black sand beach at Reynisfjara, about two-and-a-half hours from the capital of Reykjavík, Iceland. I’ve been there twice (Reynisfjara, not Hades).
When I later read up on the making of The Odyssey, I realized I’d been to three countries where Christopher Nolan shot the IMAX film: Iceland, Morocco and Türkiye.
Nolan avoids CGI. He used the historic fortified village of Aït Benhaddou as a background for ancient Troy. The beach scenes where the Trojan Horse is revealed dramatically half buried upright in the sand were filmed at Essaouira, 400 km away on Morocco’s eastern coast.
Essaouira a sublime stop in Morocco
Essaouira is one of my favourite places in the North African country. It has a picturesque harbour filled with bright blue wooden fishing boats and still has an arty, hippie vibe, more than 50 years after flower children adopted it as an exotic getaway. It’s also quiet, compared to cities like Marrakech.
Troy’s onscreen twin Aït Benhaddou was once a stop on the caravan route through Morocco’s High Atlas Mountains from the Sahara to Marrakech. The mid-brick houses and square defensive towers of the UNESCO World Heritage site are built along a steep hillside. Winding alleys lead past artisan shops, a mosque and school to the granary at the top.
The Moroccan guide who worked as a Gladiator extra
I met part-time tour guide Kachir on a 14-day Morocco trip with Canadian tour operator Adventures Abroad. He was 15 when director Ridley Scott came to “the door of the desert” to film scenes for the Oscar-winning drama Gladiator and built a replica Roman arena at the edge of the ksar (fortified village). Kachir worked as an extra.
“Russell Crowe was good,” Kachir said as he poured mint tea for visitors in the classic Moroccan style, the pot held high to aerate the tea as it foamed into a narrow glass. He had albums with pictures from the Gladiator set, along with stills from other films shot at Aït Benhaddou like Babel and Kingdom of Heaven. Kachir also worked as an extra on the series Game of Thrones.
Gladiator meant so much to Kachir, he had a photo of Crowe as Maxiumus on his living room wall. Crowe’s photo was all over Aït Benhaddou.
Only a handful of families still live in the town. Most come in for the day and work in tourism-related businesses, including Amazigh women who weave carpets for a local co-operative.
Odysseus: the original travel influencer
The fictional Odysseus could be called the original travel influencer. In Homer’s ancient literary epics, the Ithacan king took a meandering 10 years by land and sea to get home after a decade spent fighting in the Trojan War. His exploits have inspired art, culture and curious travellers for thousands of years.
While we can’t go to mythic places like Calypso’s island of Ogygia, you can go to the site of ancient Troy in Çanakkale Türkiye. I visited there on a 17-day Adventures Abroad trip through Western Türkiye.
Troy was real and you can visit
Was Troy real? Is this the place Homer writes about in The Iliad and the post-Trojan War saga The Odyssey? There’s been continuous habitation here for more than 5,000 years. I learned from a guide at the ruins site that there’s archeological evidence that the Troy of Homer’s tellings once stood here. Digs have uncovered evidence of 10 layers of built and destroyed settlement, including a Roman city from 500 AD and Byzantine settlement that lasted until the 15th century.
After exploring the dig areas from a series of walkways where there’s good signage to help you understand what you’re looking at, see Troy’s unearthed treasures at the Troy Museum. It’s about a 10-minute walk from the site.
Climb inside a replica Trojan Horse
There are stone walls, walkways, foundations and even the remains of a small Roman theatre at the ancient Troy site.
You can pose with replica Trojan horses for photos. The smaller one, at 12 metres high, was a full-sized prop from Troy, the 2004 movie starring Brad Pitt as Achilles. It’s at the city’s harbour, about a half hour away. There’s a 15-metre-tall version at the archeological site. They charge a couple of euros to climb inside to let you feel like an Ithacan soldier in a wooden version of a tin can.
Welcome to Hades
Reynisfjara black sand beach in Iceland convincingly stands in for the underworld Hades in The Odyssey. Both times I visited on overcast misty days, where the ebony, 66-metre Reynisdrangar basalt sea stacks appear to punch up from the roiling North Atlantic. I enjoyed the gloomy atmosphere and the way the inky sand contrasted with the brilliant green, sloping hillside behind it and the red roof on the white church down the way at the small town of Vik.
Orderly octagonal, basalt pillars at the beach edge seem too precise to be created by nature. They reminded me of Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland. More on that incredible place in a future blog.
Getting to the black sand beach
Visit Reynisfjara by renting a car and driving, or take one of a variety of day trips by bus from Reykjavík. I did the Golden Circle tour along Iceland’s most popular travel route and another one to the South Coast. Visit Iceland has ideas and recommendations.
