In Bodrum you can explore Bodrum Castle, built by the Knights of St John and home since 1960 to the Museum of Underwater Archaeology; stand on the site of the Mausoleum, the tomb of Mausolus that was counted among the seven wonders of the ancient world; sit in the ancient theatre north of the centre; and trace what is left of Halikarnassos, the ancient city on which the modern town stands. Further along the peninsula are the ruins of Myndos at Gümüşlük, a maritime museum, the house of Zeki Müren and an olive tree at Bitez reckoned to be more than 300 years old. Below they are taken in turn; each has its own guide on this site with the visiting details.
Bodrum Castle and the Museum of Underwater Archaeology
The Knights of St John began the castle around 1402 and called it the Castle of St Peter. They wanted a secure foothold on the mainland as the Ottoman state grew stronger, and Bodrum suited them because it lay close to Kos, where they already held a castle. The rock it stands on, between two harbours, was an island in antiquity and only later joined the town; the knights built over older defences, and the stones of the ruined Mausoleum went into the work.
The castle is the joint work of Italians, French, Germans and English, and its parts are of different dates: the chapel of 1406, the English Tower of 1413. The plan is square, 180 by 185 metres, ringed by double walls everywhere except on the east. Inside stand towers named after different countries, the French, Italian, German and English Towers, along with the Snake Tower; the French Tower is the highest, at 47.5 metres above sea level. Cem Sultan sheltered here after failing to take the throne from his brother Bayezid II.
Under the Ottomans the chapel became a mosque with a minaret, and the castle served at times as a military base and a prison. In the First World War fire from a French warship toppled the minaret and damaged some towers. After standing empty for about forty years it was turned into the Museum of Underwater Archaeology, and the castle has since become the emblem of the town.
Halikarnassos: the Mausoleum and the theatre
Today's Bodrum is built over Halikarnassos, the city where Herodotos was born. Its great period came when Mausolus, satrap of Caria, moved his capital here from Mylasa around 367 BC and brought in the sculptors and architects of his day to rebuild it; the Mausoleum, the theatre and the city walls all date from his reign. Alexander took the city in 334 BC. The remains to look for are the theatre, stretches of the wall with the Myndos Gate, the Mausoleum, the necropolis, a Roman villa and, east of the theatre, a temple of Mars from the time of Augustus.
The Mausoleum was the tomb Mausolus began for himself and his wife Artemisia carried on after his death in 353 BC. It drew its fame from a design without precedent, Greek columns under an Egyptian pyramidal roof at a scale never tried for a tomb, and every later building of that kind took the name mausoleum from it. Go knowing that the building itself is gone. The earthquake of 8 August 1304 brought most of it down, its stones were reused in the castle, and many of its reliefs and statues were taken to the British Museum in 1857, so what you visit at Yeniköy is an open-air site. The ancient sources name Pytheos as the architect and Bryaxis, Timotheos, Leochares and Skopas as the sculptors; Bryaxis made the figures of Mausolus and Artemisia that rode the four-horse chariot on the summit.
The theatre, also of the fourth century BC and the reign of Mausolus, is among the oldest in Anatolia. It seats 13,000 in fifty-five rows, thirty below and twenty-five above, with eleven stairways dividing the seating into twelve sections. Look for the altar where sacrifices were made to Dionysos before performances, and for the holes between some seats that may once have held awnings. Many of Bodrum's cultural events are staged here today.
Around the peninsula
Myndos lies at Gümüşlük on the western side of the peninsula, a city the ancient sources say Mausolus founded in the fourth century BC. Its walls ran from the ridges of Kocadağ to Tavşan Adası, the island off the shore, where excavation found the remains of a church, and the site was lived in until the end of the Byzantine period. Early Bronze Age graves found around it are now displayed in the Museum of Underwater Archaeology.
The town has two small museums of its own. The Maritime Museum centres on the working sailing boats the town once built, from the gayık to the gulet, ancestors of the Blue Voyage boats, and keeps a section on Cevat Şakir Kabaağaçlı. The Zeki Müren Art Museum is the house where Zeki Müren, one of the defining figures of Turkish music, lived from 1980 until his death in 1996; it opened in 2000 with his stage costumes, photographs and personal belongings. At Bitez, a single olive tree is protected as a natural monument: 3.5 metres tall with a trunk 2.60 metres across, and put at more than 300 years old.
On the road in from Milas
Güvercinlik Nature Park sits above the coast at the 30th kilometre of the Milas–Bodrum road, twenty kilometres from Bodrum, in pine and maquis; the directorate singles out the sea view and the sunset. The 48-6 bus between the two towns stops about 500 metres away. Turning off at the 25th kilometre of the same road and going two kilometres leads to Boğaziçi, ancient Bargylia, where stretches of wall, temple foundations, a theatre, a small odeon and Roman aqueducts survive unexcavated, and the Tuzla wetland draws pelicans and other migrating birds in winter. Walkers can also reach Bodrum on foot along the Carian Trail, whose Gulf of Gökova section, the longest of the route, runs on into Bodrum through ruins, small villages and beaches.
Each place's own page has the visiting details and, where the source gives them, opening hours and fees.
