Day 199 Wed 2 May 2007 Bodrum to Selcuk, Turkey

By morning the rain has stopped and the sun begins to come out making the hotel look even more like something from a child’s toy box. After a leisurely breakfast we set out through the narrow cobbled lanes to find the castle which guards the harbour. Built by the crusaders on their rampage during the C15 it houses the museum of underwater archaeology with a collection of wrecks and finds from wrecks dating back to 3000BC. Of particular interest are the displays of amphora or earthenware jars used for the transport of wine, olive oil and other foodstuffs, which like eggs, were designed for ease of packing in ships and for handling, the glass ware and fragments found in one of the wrecks and the reconstruction of a ship from 500BC. The castle itself is very interesting: a real castle with lots of keeps, battlements and passageways.

In the afternoon we drive round the peninsula where we are smooth-talked into a delicious but expensive lunch at a table right beside the harbour of a small village, before moving on up the coast to Selcuk, the site of Ephesus and its roman ruins. We arrive in early evening and watch a magnificent sunset from the roof of the Hotel Bella, which sits opposite the gate to the byzantine castle and the basilica of St John. From the roof terrace we can also watch a pair of storks nesting on the lamppost just below, apparently they always return to the same nest and stay for approx 6 months from March after wintering in Africa.