I have been to Bodrum a few times as it is the boarding place for ferries to Kos and I need to nip to greece every three months to renew my visa. Other than these fleeting visits to the dock of the bay I have also visited Bodrum when my parents came over late last winter.
Bodrum has a population of 40,000 and is a very popular tourist destination. As we were there out of season it was very quiet and quaint, but be aware that the place transforms itself in the summer months; Bodrum is known as the ‘bedroom of Turkey’. The whole place is full of late night clubs and in high season is a major party town; the place is prety loud, indeed one of Bodrums nightclubs, the Halikarnas is proud to have the loudest sound system on the Eastern Medeteranean.
Like many of the cities in Turkey, people have been living in the Bodrum area for thousands of years; one of the monuments that Bodrum is most famous for, the Mausoleum (One of the wonders of the world) was built about 400 BC. Unfortumately most of the Mausoleum remains (from many Earthquakes) were ransacked by the Christain crusaders in the 15th century to reinforce the castle as they thought that it would be attacked by Ottoman forces. When the time came the Christians abandoned the castle without a fight. So there was no need at all to have destroyed what remained of the Mausoleum. Perhaps to add insult to injury the Castle of St Peter now proudly features a minaret.
As you can see from below little remains of the ancient wonder of the world the Mausoleum.
This diagram below shows what the Mausoleum used to look like. It reached a height of 140 feet and was made of pure marble. A few of the sculptures that were part of it fortunately were not used to reinforce the Castle of Saint Peter, and are viewable in a few museums throughout the world. At the Mausoleum site itself there are a few remains viewable, mainly of statue heads, hands and feet.
The castle of St. Peter itself is very nice though. Here is a picture of it.
And one from it showing my Mum and Dad too.
The main seafront of Bodrum is an harbour, though this makes for nice pictures from a distance, if you are close up and walking along the sea front then there is not much of a view because of all of the boats.
Hope you enjoyed this, I’ll do a write up about Kos next and finish off my ‘in the local area’ set with a post on Ephesus and maybe one on Sirence.
Deano