Things to Do in Bodrum

Sunset climb to Castle of St Peter

From the battlements masts sway in the marina, rigging pings metal on metal, salt coats your lips as tour boats churn white wakes toward Orak Island. Inside, the Museum of Underwater Archaeology packs vaulted halls with the scent of old timber and the green glow of 3,000-year-old glass.

Day-sail on a traditional gulet

Engines die. Sails belly out with a whip-crack. The deck tilts underfoot. You sprawl on embroidered cushions, feel pine tar tacky on the rail, dive into jade water that tastes faintly of juniper when you surface beside the rocky cove.

Windmills of Bardakçı Ridge

Six stone cylinders stand like broken sentinels, vanes long gone. Climb at sunrise. You'll hear only cicadas and the scrape of shoes on basalt while the town below smells of baking bread and diesel drifting uphill.

Thursday market in Ortakent

Under plastic awnings that flap like spinnakers, vendors shout prices for strawberries still wearing morning dew. Sip sour-plum juice over ice. Feel the nubby weave of hand-loomed cicim towels. Smell goat-milk soap sliced with hot wire.

Diving the Great Reef

Down at 28 m the wall drops into indigo. Your own bubbles drum through your skull. Purple sea fans sway like slow-motion flags. Groupers hover, pale-eyed. A ceramic amphora handle juts from the sand like a lost teaspoon.

Yalıkavak marina strip. Boutique hotels hover above super-yacht berths. Espresso machines hum at dawn.

Gümbet bar street. Budget pensions where bass from open-air clubs rattles windows till two.

Türkbükü boardwalk. See-and-be-seen pensions. Breakfast arrives on cane terraces scented with thyme honey.

Bitez olive groves. Low-rise guesthouses tucked among lemon trees, five minutes to windsurf beach.

Bodrum town back lanes. Family pansiyons behind the castle. Cockerels and the dawn call to prayer.

Gümüşlük fishing village. Stilted cottages over the sand. Sunset tables sit right outside your door.