Hays Travelogue

Last weekend, our friends, Bob and Martha, loaned us their house near Gümüşluk. (Gümüşlük means silvery in Turkish.) on the Bodrum Peninsula. This southwestern part of Turkey is full of holiday resorts and villas, swelling from about 30,000 year round residents to over 1,000,000 in the summer. Winter, therefore, seemed like the perfect time for us to visit. Many restaurants and tourist shops were closed, but we found enough to keep us busy. Recent rains had washed out some roads and caused some rockslides, but we were able to get everywhere we wanted to go with a few detours. Besides visiting nearby towns of Turgut Reis and Yalıkavak, we made a long day trip to Herakleia.

Some of the ruins of ancient Herakleia are incorporated into the modern day village of Kapıkırı on the shore of Lake Bafa. For instance, the small remains of the baths were being used as a pasture for a donkey. The owner of the donkey, a friendly old woman, was happy to sell us some of her lace handicrafts. Other ruins are spread out around the village. Because of recent heavy rains, we were unable to see anything other than those in and near the town. We had a tasty lunch at the Agora Pension.

We stopped at Euromos on our way back to Gümüşlük. The remaining Corinthian columns of a Temple of Zeus stand among the olive trees and pine groves.

We spent our last day sightseeing in Bodrum. (Did you know that Herodotus was born here?) That day was a Monday, so the museums were closed. The weather was good, and we strolled around town, enjoying the views and sampling the good food. We will have to go back another time to visit the Museum of Underwater Archeology at Bodrum Castle and the Tomb of Mausolus (whose fancy tomb gives us the word mausoleum).