Explore Bodrum

Bodrum Castle was built by the Knights of St John from 1404 on the rocky peninsula between Bodrum's two harbours, partly with stone taken from the ruined Mausoleum. Its towers carry the names of the English, French, German and Italian knights, and the castle houses the Museum of Underwater Archaeology with finds from ancient shipwrecks.

The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus was the tomb of the Carian ruler Mausolus, begun shortly before his death in 353 BC and completed after it by his sister and wife Artemisia. Counted among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, it was brought down by earthquakes; the site in Bodrum shows its foundations and scattered column drums and marble blocks.

The Theatre at Halicarnassus was built in the 4th century BC under Mausolus on the slope of Göktepe above Bodrum and enlarged in Roman times in the 2nd century AD. Its stone seating once held 10,000 to 13,000 spectators; from the upper rows you look across the town to the castle and the bay, and the theatre is used for concerts and festivals.

The Myndos Gate is the western gate in the city walls of ancient Halicarnassus, raised when Mausolus enclosed the city in the 4th century BC, and named after the town of Myndos at the end of the peninsula. Two towers of large stone blocks flank the gateway west of Bodrum's centre, one standing almost to its original height, beside Hellenistic and Roman vaulted tombs.