ABOUT bodrum, Turkey

Today Bodrum is considered the Saint Tropez of Turkey and is one of its most attractive tourist resorts. Once the ancient city Halicarnassus (the birthplace of Herodotus), Bodrum was the site of the Mausoleum of King Mausoleus, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Two millennia later the Knights of St. John built a magnificent Crusader Castle which today is the centerpiece of the modern town. After the fall of the castle during the reign of the Ottoman Turks Bodrum declined and a hundred years ago was a small isolated village, still important because it was the center of the sponge diving industry along the Turkish coast.



Rediscovered some twenty years ago Bodrum is now one of the most popular tourist destinations on the western coast of Turkey and is the center of gullet charters down the famous ‘Mavi Yolculuk’ (Blue Highway). In addition to being fully restored Crusader Castle the Bodrum Kale today is the world’s premier museum of ancient shipwreck archaeology. The five shipwrecks on display include one of the ten most important archaeological finds of the past century, a Bronze Age shipwreck which sank 3,300 ago and was discovered by Turkish sponge divers in 1984.



Opposite Bodrum is the Greek island of Kos where Hippocrates was born in the 5th century BC. The impressive remains of the large medical center he established there have been partially restored.