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Next day was a long bus ride, to the ancient city of Halicarnassus, better known today as Bodrum the party town. We rented an apartment here with a beautiful balcony that looked over the hills to the whitewashed city.
We spent many an hour lying on sun beds drowsily watching the sea… |
Castle of St Peter – Knights Templar
We caught a dolmus (minibus) to the Castle of St Peter a Knights Templar stronghold in the late 14th century. They built it after Tamerlane destroyed their old one at Smyrna. It’s very impressive with many rooms that house the worlds largest Underwater Archeology Museum. Impressively roman transport boat that was discovered with cargo mostly intact. They even found loads of amphora filled with wine. Mm centuries old Greek wine, wonder what it tasted like!
The Underwater Archeology Museum was so impressive. They’ve recently recovered old Roman/Greek shipwrecks in Bodrum Harbour, one particular wreck was discovered with cargo intact! They even found loads of amphora filled with ancient wine. Mm… centuries old Greek wine, wonder what it tasted like!
On display was beautiful, delicate glass and precious jewellry. The glass is on display now is pearlescent as a result of the metal oxidising giving it a beautiful pearly sheen. Glass cups, beads, plates plus they had the cutest diorama of the scuba divers going down to retrieve items from the wreck.
Greg loved their coin collection, it was interesting to find out how many coins it was to get an ox or cow, how many wages you get and how often. It talked about inflation and how they combat it.
The Castle views are great and the sea is so green and clear. Finally we ventured down to the dungeons, where the Templars kept their prisoners. In turn, ironically they became residents, when Suleyman the Magnificent captured Rhodes and took over the castle. He turned the castle into a Mosque, imprisoning the knights and then sealing off the dungeons forever. When the Museum staff opened the dungeons recently, they found old skeletons in there!
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We strolled the harbour looking for seafood lunch.We found a fantastic place Gemibasi (Ships captain). We got to choose our fresh fish in the kitchen and – Wow what a meal! Beautifully cooked sea bass, tasty mezes, crisp white wine, on little white tables with blue chairs overlooking the yachts on the harbour. Wow. It was fantastic. Happiness! |
That afternoon we walked on to see the ancient resting place of King Mausolus – also known as the Mausoleum. One of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, built for King Mausolos.Which is where the word mausoleum comes from. It stood 25m high and was an impressive marble wonder, statues of gods and deeds on all sides. Sadly it was destroyed by the Knights Templar to build their Castle. Bastards! Sabotaging my ancient tourist site! However, I did get to see the basement chamber which wasn’t open to tourists in the first century!
Then….
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And now….
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Greg cooked a great dinner and we enjoyed a fairly bad bottle of wine on the balcony before heading out to go wild!
Ok well Bodrum and wild in May is a little hard. The clubs were pretty quiet but we did a little dance and ended up in bed around 1am, which is when the crazy loud music started up….sigh! Then staggered to the beach the next day, recuperating in a beachside hammock, sipping a raspberry cocktail and researching our Tuscay trip…. That night we had dinner at ‘Peter’s Place’, a lovely place where Peter himself served us the best manti ever! Manti, is like beef ravioli, little twists of pasta with meat surprise inside. Yum! Peter gave us some food tips for our next day driving north as well…..
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Yummy manti!
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Stay tuned for our next adventures, as we follow the ancient pilgrim trail up to Ephesus, stopping at the old pilgrammage sites and temples on the way!
Till next time
Keep Travelling!
Jade & Greg
Till next time
Keep Travelling!
Jade & Greg
