Bodrum
Not counting Athens, from which the cruise left, our trip had six stops. The first three were Greek islands: Milos, Santorini, and Rhodes. The latter three were ports on the Turkish mainland: Bodrum, Kuşadası, Istanbul.
Bodrum was kind of like a mini-Rhodes: the Knights Hospitaller had set up a castle here, too, and there were also some ancient Greek ruins.
Here's a view of the Knight's fortress, St. Peter's Castle, from our ship.
Here's some nice evidence (not that any was needed) that the name "Hospitallers" (or "hospitalis" with a "long s") was contemporaneous with the organization, and not a later coinage of historians. You've even got the year of 1452 ("m . cccc . lii"), and, at no extra charge, some crescents to show who had the last laugh.
And here's some nice evidence that the Knights divided their fortress into sectors watched over by each of the "tongues".
More old inscriptions: there was a room -- a dining hall, I think -- whose window "frames" (for lack of a better term) were covered in ye olde graffiti.
We also visited an underground room that the museum signs claimed had been used by the Knights as a torture chamber. It was further claimed that the entryway was once adorned with a Latin inscription that translated to "Here there is no God." That's as fitting an epitaph for the Crusades as any.
Bodrum had another attraction: it's built on the site of the ancient Greek city of Halicarnassus, which is famous for having one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world, the Mausoleum. (Halicarnassus was also Herodotus's hometown. Somehow I missed this statue of him.)
I knew to have very, very low expectations of the Mausoleum's site given that a) all of the Wonders except the Pyramids at Giza are considered "lost", and b) Lonely Planet specifically mentioned that there's not much to see there. But how could I be so close and not go?
It was true that there wasn't much to see there: a gravel-lined pit with some column drums and marble fragments scattered about. At street-level was a nice little museum with signs telling the story of Mausolus, and around the edges of the pit were the fig and pomegranate trees with actual fruit on their branches I mentioned earlier.
The most remarkable thing about the site to me was how hemmed in it was by the modern, ordinary world. We were probably half a mile from the beach on a back street, surrounded by houses on all sides. The museum itself looked like a house from the street; it was as if the Mausoleum was now in somebody's backyard.
How surreal this view would be to old King Mausolus. I wonder what would be harder to explain to him, the cars and scooters endlessly roaring past his grave, or the minaret looming over it?
Incidentally, as fragmentary as the Mausoleum was, it was the most intact of the Ancient Wonders we saw on this trip which happened to include the site of three. Nothing is left of the Colossus of Rhodes or the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus.
Bodrum was kind of like a mini-Rhodes: the Knights Hospitaller had set up a castle here, too, and there were also some ancient Greek ruins.
Here's a view of the Knight's fortress, St. Peter's Castle, from our ship.
Here's some nice evidence (not that any was needed) that the name "Hospitallers" (or "hospitalis" with a "long s") was contemporaneous with the organization, and not a later coinage of historians. You've even got the year of 1452 ("m . cccc . lii"), and, at no extra charge, some crescents to show who had the last laugh.
And here's some nice evidence that the Knights divided their fortress into sectors watched over by each of the "tongues".
More old inscriptions: there was a room -- a dining hall, I think -- whose window "frames" (for lack of a better term) were covered in ye olde graffiti.
We also visited an underground room that the museum signs claimed had been used by the Knights as a torture chamber. It was further claimed that the entryway was once adorned with a Latin inscription that translated to "Here there is no God." That's as fitting an epitaph for the Crusades as any.
Bodrum had another attraction: it's built on the site of the ancient Greek city of Halicarnassus, which is famous for having one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world, the Mausoleum. (Halicarnassus was also Herodotus's hometown. Somehow I missed this statue of him.)
I knew to have very, very low expectations of the Mausoleum's site given that a) all of the Wonders except the Pyramids at Giza are considered "lost", and b) Lonely Planet specifically mentioned that there's not much to see there. But how could I be so close and not go?
It was true that there wasn't much to see there: a gravel-lined pit with some column drums and marble fragments scattered about. At street-level was a nice little museum with signs telling the story of Mausolus, and around the edges of the pit were the fig and pomegranate trees with actual fruit on their branches I mentioned earlier.
The most remarkable thing about the site to me was how hemmed in it was by the modern, ordinary world. We were probably half a mile from the beach on a back street, surrounded by houses on all sides. The museum itself looked like a house from the street; it was as if the Mausoleum was now in somebody's backyard.
How surreal this view would be to old King Mausolus. I wonder what would be harder to explain to him, the cars and scooters endlessly roaring past his grave, or the minaret looming over it?
Incidentally, as fragmentary as the Mausoleum was, it was the most intact of the Ancient Wonders we saw on this trip which happened to include the site of three. Nothing is left of the Colossus of Rhodes or the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus.