Bodrum is a Turkish port town in Muğla Province, in the southwestern Aegean Region of the country. It is located on the southern coast of Bodrum Peninsula, at a point that checks the entry into the Gulf of Gökova, and it faces the Greek island of Kos. Today, it is an international center of tourism and yachting. The city was called Halicarnassus of Caria in ancient times. The Mausoleum of Mausolus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, was here.
Bodrum Castle, built by the Crusaders in the 15th century, overlooks the harbor and the International Marina. The castle grounds include a Museum of Underwater Archeology and hosts several cultural festivals throughout the year.

 

Highlights: Bodrum Castle – Museum of Underwater Archeology - Mausoleum

Bodrum Castle:
Bodrum Castle was built by the Knights Hospitaller starting in 1402 as the Castle of St. Peter or Petronium.

 

Museum of Underwater Archaeology:
In 1962 the Turkish Government turns the castle into a museum for the many underwater discoveries of ancient shipwrecks in the Aegean Sea. This has become the Bodrum Museum of Underwater Archaeology, with a vast collection of amphoras, ancient glass, bronze, clay, iron items. It is the biggest of its kind devoted to underwater archaeology. Most of its collection dates from underwater excavations after 1960.

 

Mausoleum:
The Tomb of Maussollos, Mausoleum of Maussollos or Mausoleum at Halicarnassus was a tomb built between 353 and 350 BC at Bodrum for Mausolus, a satrap in the Persian Empire, and Artemisia II of Caria, his wife and sister. The structure was designed by the Greek architects Satyrus and Pythius.It stood approximately 45 metres (135 feet) in height, and each of the four sides was adorned with sculptural reliefs created by each one of four Greek sculptors — Leochares, Bryaxis, Scopas of Paros and Timotheus. The finished structure was considered to be such an aesthetic triumph that Antipater of Sidon identified it as one of his Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.