Adventures in Bodrum

September 2014

We arrived in Bodrum bright and early at 8am. I had never really heard of Bodrum before this trip, but it is supposedly quite the popular seaside getaway town for the rich and famous in Turkey. One of the excursions we could choose was a trip to a fancy hotel to lounge by the beach or spend the day at the spa. Being the history lovers we are, though, Tommy and I chose the "Bodrum Castle with Expert Guide" tour.

The Castle of St. Peter sits on a small, rocky peninsula in the middle of the town's two harbors. The castle was built in 1402 by the Crusader Knights using the remains of the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, which was destroyed by in earthquakes (more to come on that). The castle was later taken over in 1522 by Suleiman the Magnificent and the Ottoman Empire.

The castle now houses the Museum of Underwater Archaeology, which was the focus of our tour. The "expert guide" was definitely the coolest part of the trip. He was part of the original crew of underwater archaeologists who dove around Bodrum in beginning in the 1950's to uncover the ruins that the museum holds today. Our guide was the photographer who dove to take pictures of the ruins as they were uncovered - how cool is that?! Here he is showing us some of the amphoras that were found in the shipwrecks:

  

And a very large anchor:

The shipwrecks were the stars of this museum. This one dated back to the Bronze age. The discovery of obsidian on this ship that could be traced to a specific location and time completely changed the understanding of the history of seafaring that existed at the time - pushing the time of the earliest known seafarers back thousands of years.

The museum housed many of the treasures found on the boats. Number 6 in the second picture is especially valuable - unfortunately, I can't remember why :(

  

There's a story behind this picture that makes it especially interesting. Our guide told the story of diving down to photograph some of the ruins and treasures, using a vacuum to remove some of the sand and dirt from around the ruins when his vacuum stopped working because something was stuck in it. What was it? Just one of those gold coins now displayed at the top of the case. Really cool to have a guide who was so intimately involved in the excavation of the ruins - his excitement was palpable as explained history and told his story and it made it so much more interesting!

After we finished our tour of the castle and museum, we grabbed a bite to eat and wandered through town, up some winding streets, past homes, little grocery stores, and then, right in the middle of it all, the ruins of yet another one of the Wonders of the Ancient world. So crazy! The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus was built in the 4th century BC as a tomb to hold the remains of Mausolus, a Governor in the Persian Empire. It was destroyed by a series of earthquakes in the 12th-15th century AD, and not much remains today except the foundation of the building and pieces of some of the columns, but you can imagine how impressive it must have been. As I said, the some materials from the ruins of the mausoleum were used in construction of the Castle of St. Peter. 

 

Past some more residential buildings, up a steep hill, and across a busy street lies the Theater of Halicarnassus. We didn't really know this existed, but could see it up at the top of the hill as we walked through the town, so we decided to hike up and check it out. Tommy and I were the only ones there and we weren't even sure it was open, but no one stopped us from walking up and checking it out, so we explored.

We walked up to the top of the first level of seating. Tommy may have walked a little higher, but the rocks looked a little unsteady, so this acrophobic decided to stick to the top of the first level!

 

 

The view from our perch - that's the castle on the peninsula at the left of the photo. We kept wondering how it was possible that cruise ships and tourists flock to Bodrum and yet somehow, we were the only ones who hiked up to the theater and were enjoying that amazing view - very cool!

We hiked back down and made our way back to the boat. This was our view of the boat in the harbor as we rode back on the tender:

Since the boat was anchored out in the water not right on shore, they opened up the back of the boat for some water sports. Some people went water skiing or sailing, but Tommy and I elected just to float on the rafts they were pulling behind the boat and enjoy the beautiful Aegean Sea:

 

 Before we left Bodrum, a traditional Turkish Belly Dancer came on board and danced for everyone:

Of course, she requested volunteers - now you can see why Tommy sat is in the back row behind everyone else!

 We went out on deck to watch the ship depart Bodrum at 7pm

It was fairly calm, so they were able to unfurl the sails more than usual:

 

At the beginning of the trip, we signed up for one night to eat at Candles, the on-deck "restaurant" that was set up each night. We picked a great night - the sun was setting and we were just pulling out of Bodrum catching our last glimpses of the Turkish coastline as we made or way to the Greek Isles. Beautiful! The crew put on a fun show for everyone after dinner and we headed back to our room after a packed day.

 Next up, Santorini and yes, it really is as beautiful as the photos you see!

Chefs for a Day in Rhodes

September 2014

We arrived in Rhodes in the early afternoon - our only afternoon arrival of the trip. We began our tour with a drive around the less populated side of Rhodes. I will admit to being a little disappointed with this part of the tour - I really agonized over which tour to choose and was thinking that I might have made the wrong decision and we should have gone to see the ruins of Lindos, or just wandered around the medieval walled city. In the end, I made the right choice, but that was how it started.

We passed the place where the Collossus, another one of the wonders of the ancient world, once stood, but alas, it was destroyed by an earthquake in 226 BC and carried away by looters or used to build many of the buildings around the island. We got off the bus to take a picture in the wind at a scenic overlook:

And one of a pretty beach...

This is the temple of Apollo at the Acropolis of Rhodes:

...and that's about all I know about it. I hopped out of the tour bus to take a picture in front of it :)

We got off of the bus near Old Town Rhodes and the charm and beauty of the city became immediately evident. Outside of the walled city there were rows of little souvenir stands selling all kinds of trinkets and nick-nacks.

Among the most popular items were these natural sponges. The light colored ones were cheaper, imported and bleached to be a brighter color. The darker colored ones were picked out of the seas surrounding Rhodes. We didn't purchase a sponge, but they were my favorite of the wares peddled by the street vendors.

The walled city of Rhodes was Tommy's favorite stop on the trip. He grew up reading about the intricate layers of protective walls surrounding these cities, but he had never seen such a well-preserved example. I'll admit, it was pretty cool, and very interesting.

It was beautiful and scenic inside the walls. The architecture was primarily European medieval, but there was still some evidence of the Ottoman Empire that ruled the island for a time.

We toured the Palace of the Grand Master, built by the Knights of Rhodes, who ruled the island from 1309 to 1522 and constructed many of the famous buildings and monuments still standing today:

There were many beautiful mosaics throughout the palace. For some reason, this one of Medusa particularly struck me:

These windows made of amber were pretty cool, too:

Our tour of the city ended at this tiny restaurant, where we began our culinary "journey."

We each had a cooking station with a little burner and all of our prep work already completed. We prepared tzatziki to eat with pita bread for our appetizer, a traditional Greek salad and an eggplant salad. The main course was moussaka, a baked dish consisting of layers of ground meat and tomatoes, eggplant, and potatoes, topped with a creamy bechamel sauce. We blended up the meat mixture and layered everything in a stone bowl to be cooked in the oven. It was delicious and SO rich!

We even got to wear cute chefs hats (ha!):

Here we all are enjoying the fruits of our labors:

And a very attractive picture of me stuffing my face with Greek salad.

When we finished eating, our tour was over. Tommy and I chose to just wander around the walled city for a few more hours. There were a few streets that were wide like this main street:

But many of them were narrow, and winding, with buildings on either side. We even wandered through the residential part of the city - imagine living somewhere like that!

Before we headed back to the boat, we sat out in a courtyard and enjoyed a wine, beer and the biggest (but definitely not best) piece of baklava I've ever seen:

Our tour guide told us that it was a neat experience to wander the streets of the city as the sun was setting and the shadows were starting to fall, so we lingered in the city as long we we could and had a beautiful walk back in the dusk. The view of the boat as we arrived back to the port was not so bad, either:

Before dinner, a group of traditional Greek dancers boarded the boat and performed a few dances for us.

Of course, there was audience participation involved, but Tommy and I elected to enjoy the view from our comfy seats! We left Rhodes at 11 pm, our latest night in a port. Perfect for a photo of the sails being raised in the dark of night - there can never be too many pictures of the sails!!

Tomorrow, we venture back to Turkey one last time to visit scenic Bodrum...