The port of Bodrum is located on the coast of south western Turkey, overlooking the Aegean Sea. These days it serves as a holiday destination and is a thriving resort town although it was not always so. Bodrum is built on the ruins of Halicarnassus, an ancient city famous for two reasons.

The first is that Halicarnassus is the birthplace of Herodotus, considered by many to be the father of historical study as we know it (unless, of course, you happen to be a student of his contemporary, Thucydides). Much of what we know about life in 5th Century Greece, Persia and Egypt comes from his writings.

The second famous fact about Halicarnassus is that it is the site of the tomb of Mausolus, built in about 350BC and one of the seven wonders of the ancient world (and also the reason we now have the world Mausoleum).

(Sunset over the Aegean Sea, October 2006 - Click for bigger)

Approximately 220km north of Bodrum is the ancient archeological site of Ephesus which, amongst other impressive classical buildnigs, was also home to another of the seven wonders of the ancient world namely the Temple of Artemis. This shrine to the Greek Goddess of the Hunt was built some 200 years prior to the tomb in Halicarnassus and was destroyed by fire only a couple of years before Mausolus’ resting place was constructed.

Could I be arsed to see either of these two historical sites when I was in Bodrum last week? Could I fuck!

I learnt to wakeboard instead.

And then I did some diving.

It was very nice.