Bodrum

From Wikinfo

Panoramic view of Bodrum, with the famous Castle to the center

Bodrum is a Turkish port in Mugla Province, located on the Bodrum Peninsula in the Gulf of Gokova, right across from the Greek island of Kos in a part of Asia Minor known in ancient times as Caria. Nominally a satrapy of the Persian Empire, its location ensured the city enjoyed considerable autonomy.

Previously known as Halicarnassus, Mausolus made the city his capital. When he died in 353 BC, his wife, Artemisia, employed the Greek architects Satyros and Pithios, and the sculptor Scopas to build a monument to him, the first Mausoleum, one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

The Knights of Rhodes manned a castle in Bodrum from 1404 until 1522, when Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent took the castle by storm.

By the mid-1980s, Bodrum became an important tourist resort in Turkey, along with Marmaris, Cesme, Kusadasi, Antalya, and Alanya.