Day 22, 2nd May 2026. Bodrum

 Good night sleep at Kavala hotel, Liz even slept in. 

We were invited to breakfast with Jen the Australian owner and her Turkish husband, Tehir At Merih Hotel around the corner. Met the lovely couple, and had a yummy breakfast. 

It appears that they currently own this hotel/ guest house as well as Kavala. 

Australian takeover….??







After this we headed off for a wander around Bodrum: East first, up to the “free beach”(bizarre concept for an Aussie). Got feet wet, in the very cool water, had a coffee at the Saturday markets. 









Turned west, along water front restaurants where we had a couple of beers last night. 

Through the touristy section and into the inside harbour. 

Up to Bodrum castle built by the knights of St John from 1402 with permission from the sultan. Subsequently taken over by the Islamic ottoman empire a hundred years later. Abandoned after WW1 until rebuilt in the 1960’s.








Along the inner harbour there are many beautiful yachts and ketches. All appear to be staffed! 







We wandered in land a bit looking for the tomb of mausolus: hence the term mausoleum! He died 370 odd BC, and his wife and sister Artemisia ( one and same), finished this incredible structure. One of the 7 wonders if the ancient world. Unfortunately many of the stones were used in the castle, the templars found the tomb looted and what was left was destroyed by earth quakes from 12-15 century. PostScript Artemisia subsequently took over command and became a very successful maritime leader and strategist. 









Coffee on our way back to Kavala and lovely couple of hours lazing by the pool. 

Not IN the pool mind, just beside it.


Back to sea side restaurants for beers then back to Arka  for pizza…again. 

Great food and when you’re on a good thing and probably not coming back, stick to it I reckon…


Toddled home for a quick beer by the pool



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The adventurous lead up 10th April 2026

Image
This was to be called "not the Stans IYKYK" but we reconsidered this as a bit obscure.  It has certainly been quite the adventure, and we haven't left yet!  First, We found out the United Kingdom of great Britain and Ireland has changed the rules. If you are a citizen you MUST enter using a UK passport. In broad terms if your father was born in UK (like Stuart) you must use a UK passport or Relinquish your citizenship or obtain an enduring certificate of entry  these last two can take many months to process. so multiple original documents, including Australian passport was sent off to UK to obtain said passport...and it has arrived 10 days before departure. the Australian passport to arrive a couple of days later. talk about stressful! Secondly this trip, apart from the essential education component (conference in Marrakesh), was to visit the "Stans";  Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan & Kazakhstan. we thought we might give Pakistan  and...
Read more

Official Day 1 10 th April 2026 Travelling into the 11th April

Image
 Now it might seem a little strange that get to the UK this time, we are flying to across the guts of Australia to Perth.  It was another brilliant idea we had,  to test drive the 17 hour Perth to London flight. Our boys have both done and remarked that it wasn’t too bad, so we thought we would give it a go. As our luck would have it, the event in the Middle East changed all that and QF 9 doesn’t exist for the time being. It’s a Perth to Singapore ( for a 2 hour refueling stop) and then onto London. I think a total of about 29 hours. We have a flight to catch after our London arrival to get to Marrakesh, our seat of learning and education. That was all fine before we were heading to Singapore. We originally were arriving at Heathrow at 5am which gave us plenty of time to get to Gatwick for our 2pm flight to Marrakesh. Now we will be arriving at 10am with a very quick dash to the other side of London to get that flight. It seems there has been a definite tone set for this...
Read more

Day 3 ourika valley monday 13 april 2026

Image
  Today we are going on an adventure out the Ourika Valley, one of many in the Atlas mountains. Fairly low in the mountain but high enough to host a pretty waterfall. We meet our bus at 9am about a 5 minute walk away and get comfy for a trip of about an hour out of Marrakesh. The traffic out of Marrakesh is crazy but we finally emerge. Its nice being on this little bus ( with a bunch of very noisy French people) The views ahead are of the beautiful snow capped mountain range with Morocco just coming out of winter. Very pretty but hard to capture. First stop was the very busy car park beside the river with these little mini tourist buses going everywhere. I guess we wont be the only ones here today… Our mission before we have lunch by the river is to complete a 1 and half hour hike up to Sti Fadma or the top of the waterfall that we can get to by foot. Not a patch on our Purlingbrook but pretty all the same. The hike was a little unexpected, being very steep and narrow in places. Es...
Read more