Euromos, Turkey

Our search for a campground in Bodrum proved futile, so we spent a second night at the beautiful little turn-out perched above the Aegean, east of Bodrum.  (Though we didn't get a good photo, the highway's retaining walls were decorated with inset amphoras; nice touch). Next morning, hoping to avoid Milas and Mugli, and lots of road construction, we did another "backroads of Turkey" expedition, crossing the fertile Menderes valley (from which we get "meandering"), passing by Lake Bafa--once an arm of the Aegean, now a huge brackish lake--en route to Didyma. This took us past Euromos, a Greek-later-Roman town dating from the 6th century BCE, the town and most of its buildings now well gone, but sporting one of the half dozen best-preserved temples in Asia Minor, its Temple of Zeus.

Temple of Zeus, Euromos; 200m off the road

Another view

Detail

In the necroplis--middle of a plowed field, mostly--a tomb

that reminded us of dolmens, aeons earlier, in northwestern

Europe

Later I wandered up the hill, through the olive groves--the

mountains here are covered with olive trees, more than I

have seen before--in search of Euromos' badly ruined

theatre; and eventually found it



The aisle staircase still in pretty good shape

All that's left of the stage building