Bodrum Castle

We have seen our share of castles. Most are ruins; many are hulks; some few are hulks with contrived collections; few contain anything beyond local significance; very, very few contain a collection that is world-class and of world-significance. Bodrum is in that last category. The castle itself was built by "Crusaders" in the early 1400s, after most castle-building in Europe was done. It fell to the Ottomans a century later, without a fight. It was maintained with a modest garrison, then abandoned and left to itself for centuries. In 1915, the French battleship Duplex shelled it briefly. Then, in the 1960s, it came to be used to store the incredible archaeological finds coming out of Turkish waters with the advent of scuba-diving and underwater archaeology. In addition to its remarkable state, its gardens and many displays and exhibits of interest, it now houses the Bodrum Museum of Nautical Archaeology, the largest and most impressive of its kind. I'll have to do a separate post on the museum.

Each of the five "Crusading" nations built one of Bodrum's

tall towers

Red wine and beef; the castle and grounds

are littered with items such as this

Sacrifical altar

Ramp leading into inner castle

We think of container ships as something new, but all the

ancient maritime trade in the Mediterranean, going back
3,500 years, or more, carried standardized containers--
amphora jars--in which were stored grains, wine, olive oil,
precious materials; metals and unworked glass came in
standardized ingots; this is a smidge of Bodrum's
collection of amphora jars, the world's largest

Beautiful amphora mosaic



The castle courtyards and grounds are a beautiful

Mediterranean garden with many unusual species; and

peacocks roaming around

Vicki under the mulberry tree



Sculpture gardens

Inscription gardens

Ship anchor gardens (pre-Iron Age!)

Another reason to like Ataturk: he

understood Turkey's past and valued its

museums

Bodrum

Bodrum was one of the first Turkish coastal cities to go touristic, some years back, but the old town is still quite picturesque and agreeable. We parked on a back street, near the Mausoleum, then walked down to the marina, and nearly its length, to the castle, stopping for lunch at the first McDonald's we have seen in weeks.

Bodrum castle in the distance



Part of the old harbor marina; apparently Bodrum is quite the place to park 
your yacht

Fish market/squid district

So we're walking along the marina by where it adjoins a nice park, and observe 
these street vendors selling the obscene little honey-saturated doughnut holes 
we loved at the Spice Market in Istanbul

And while I am taking pictures of the line to get at them, the proprietess spots us 
and brings tourist Vicki (now an object of pity and sympathy with her arm in a 
sling) not one but two dishes of the good stuff; yum; note flag and banner of

Ataturk; flags were at half-mast to honor the police killed and injured in the 
terrorist incident in Istanbul

McDonald's wants you to know that 98% of its stuff in Turkey is locally-sourced; 
and that McDonald's is very Turkish

Along this part of the marina, outside the castle, they use ancients stones and blocks 
to demarcate the various vendors' stalls; probably all from the Mausoleum...

The "father of history," Herodotus, was a Halicarnassian

Now it's the Aegean that is remarkably clear and so interestingly colored

Bodrum's biggest draw, according to Lonely Planet, is the Club Hallikarnos, 
which can accommodate 5,000; we missed it, so I guess we can't really say 
we went to Bodrum



Halicarnassus

Bodrum was the ancient Halicarnassus, a Hellenistic city, an important port, the birthplace of Herodotus (the father of history), and, most famously, the site of the great Mausoleum of Halicarnassus. Mausoleus' Mausoleum. Mausoleus was king in Halicarnassus. Anyhow, said Mausoleum was one of the Seven Wonders of the (Ancient) World, according to Pliny. Thanks to time, earthquakes, Crusaders, and the British Museum, very, very little of it remains today, but it is one of those sites you have to visit when you're in the neighborhood. Especially if you spent much of your childhood reading Richard Halliburton's Book of Marvels.

Just in case you have forgotten the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the 
ticket office provides this helpful reminder; 3 out 7 isn't bad; Vicki will have 
seen 4

This a model of what it looked like; very high, statues all over, 
columned main part, topped by stepped pyramid and then four

horse-power chariot; fit for a king

Artist's rendering off the web

Here is what's left

There were friezes all around; the Brits hauled them off 
for the British Museum, but later generously supplied casts 
for the locals to copy

One  of the copies

The original?




Spare parts; most of those that survived the Mausoleum's first 1400 years 
were carried off by Crusaders seeking (vainly) to fortify nearby Bodrum 
Castle against the Ottomans; ironically, when the Ottomans captured the
Crusaders' headquarters at Rhodes, Bodrum Castle surrendered without a 
fight

Thought to be the tomb site

Scale...

BIG blocks

We really wanted to collect the whole set of Seven Wonders 
of the Ancient World postcards, but everybody in town was 
all sold out...maybe when we get to the Temple of Artemis 
in a few days...

On to the Aegean

Tuesday, after provisioning at the Carrefours in Fethiye, we proceeded on, now by coast, now by mountains, past the Datca peninsula, the geographical dividing line between Turkey's Mediterranean and Aegean coasts, and out, past Mugla and Milas, to the Bodrum peninsula, stopping at a scenic but secluded turn-out just a few miles short of Bodrum itself--the ancient Halicarnassus.

Looking back to Fethiye Bay



Beautiful pine forests, and heather, acres of heather, much

of the way

Lunch at a cove near Akyaka

Admiring the Mediterranean scenery,

architecture, landscaping...

On to our campsite, on the north side of the Bodrum

peninsula, the Aegean now

Fishing boats at night a few hundred feet outside our

windows

And the next morning's view of islands in the bay

Karmylassos...Levissi...Kayakoy

Monday was an interesting day, some practical matters, a surprise, and then a walk through the more recent ruins of Karmylassos, later called Levissi, now Kayakoy. It was a largely Greek town of some 400 homes, 6k from Olu Deniz and Fethiye, near the western Mediterannean coast. In 1923, during the "exchange" of populations ordered by the Great Powers, all of Turkey's substantial Greek population were "re-settled" in Greece--and vice versa. Many hundreds of thousands of persons. Nevermind these populations had been intermingled, more or less peacably, at every level, for centuries. Many centuries. It was an incredible upheaval and tragedy, memorialized in Louis de Bernieres' Birds Without Wings, a very great contemporary novel. Karmylassos is now a ghost town, 400 empty homes, churches, chapels, schools, and other buildings. It is not yet a World Heritage Site, so far as I know, but ought to be one.

I credit the Turks for memorializing this tragic part of the birth of their Republic.

Just a portion of Karmylassos, hundreds roofless homes, shops, chapels...

Some little bit of color remains on the stones and plaster

There were two main churches, an upper and a lower, and many, 
many smaller chapels;

this is the interior of the upper church

A view of the customs house at the top of the hill, from the 
upper church



Hearth and home; one of the characters in Birds Without Wings observes... 
there are no greater evils in the world than religion and nationalism

One of perhaps a dozen or more small chapels scattered about the town

School

Public fountain

Entrance to the lower church; the palms a symbol of Christian 
victory

Porch mosaic

Interior of the lower church

The practical matter: in the morning we stopped by the Letoon 
hospital in Fethiye, which has a "tourist" department, and had

Vicki's troublesome shoulder examined; in this and future pix 
you'll see her in a sling, but, hopefully, it will be getting better,

particularly after a shot, some prescriptions, etc.

The surprise: Turkey is 98% Muslim, and we had despaired of finding pork, 
starting a month ago, when our supply of bacon and pork chops from Bulgaria 
ran out; imagine our delight, in Fethiye, finding the Pork Shop (for UK tourists);

we stocked up again, as much as our little freezer permits