Part 5

Bodrum, Stratonikea, Mugla and Fethiye.

After Labranda, we drove to Golkoy, on the Bodrum Peninsula.  I had to take a picture of these very weakly constructed docks because they contrast so strongly with the massive megadocks that you see on Lake Washington.The season was almost over.  Many of the tourist facilities were shutting down.


We drove around the Bodrum Peninsula, stopping here and there to take some pictures.  These cisterns were everywhere, even though they're not in use anymore.In Gumusluk, we waded across a little straight to get to an island with some ruins on it.  Probably our only venture into the water during the whole trip!


Apparently this wasn't always an island--from the top, you can see the old road that used to lead to the mainland.Another set of unfinished buildings on the Bodrum Peninsula.


These windmills were set up on high passes, where there was a constant wind.  I assume they were for milling grains.


I don't know what these camels were doing here, but here they were, right off a major road in Bodrum.  Maybe they give rides to tourists in the high season.On the way to Mugla, where we spent the night, we stopped in Stratonikea.  Stratonikea is a very unusual place.  It's a old ruined city, surrounded by a Turkish town that was abandoned in the early part of this century for reasons that have to do with a nearby coal mine.  This is the town mosque.


This is inside, taken from an open window.  I wanted to go in, but Eric thought it was too dangerous.Inside a nearby house. It looks like it was a bakery, with the oven and what looks like shelves around it.


I think this was the fountain for men to wash before praying.  I would have expected it to be a little closer to the mosque, though.You can see how the houses were constructed where the plaster fell off.  At least one of the houses was wired for electricity--really old wiring and switches, though.


If you click on this to get the closeup, you can see the pomegranates on the tree.A Roman tomb.


Another broken down buildingSome of the stones in the ruins had Christian crosses scratched on them.


The ruins are in the middle of the Turkish village.  Notice the half-columns carved onto the wall.We saw some old bits of pottery like these around.  I imagine it's from Roman times, although it does seem odd that it is still relatively intact.


You can see here the holes where people dug out the metal connecting the blocks together.The theater at Stratonikea. In the background is the abandoned Turkish village, and further off the coal mine.


Many rocks in the ruins were painted by archeologists with marking indicating where they were thought to come from.  This one is from the ruined theater.We drove to Mugla that night, and went out to eat.  We stopped at an ice cream stand and got to know Havva Koca (on the right) and Selcan Makas.  Havva started talking to us in English--both of them are studying English and teaching at the university.


The main activity of the day was driving into Fethiye.  We got some great views along the costal road.We stopped off at the quiet village of Gocek, which seems to be mainly a yachting port.  Here's some of the boats we saw.


This is the marvelous view from our hotel in Fethiye.  It was one of our favorite hotels.


Walking around town, we saw this sign--ketchup Cheetos??We sat at the same table as Pat and Charles Newman for dinner, and ended up talking with them for about an hour.  They were a very charming and friendly English couple that has come to Turkey about 10 times over the past 10 years, and have seen many changes.  They seemed to have made friends all over town--about 3 groups of people stopped by and said hello to them while we were eating.


We took the road up from Fethiye to Seki today, looking for some ruins that were on our maps, but not in our guidebooks.  Turned out they weren't marked, on the road, either.  But it was a very beautiful high-plateau area.


We parked and hiked up a trail that looked like a tractor road.  This would be a great place for some longer hikes.


This area is used as pasture by lots of goatherds-the ground was covered with piles of goat droppingsThe pine trees in the area had really interesting shapes.


A pincushion-type cactus plant that we found.Marble, called mermer in Turkish, is extracted in this area.


...and processed here as well.  It must be really cheap--in Mugla, even cheap restaurants had marbles floors.