British Bodrum

Thursday 16th

We got up early and caught the 7:30am bus to Bodrum and arrived just after 10:30am. We were picked up by our couchsurfer host Gunes from the bus station and we headed back to her place. She lives in a really pretty spot overlooking all of Bodrum. She gave us some delicious seafood pasta for lunch and we chatted together for a while. Gunes has really been so many places, she is a dedicated traveller. We had great India/Nepal reminiscing as she has also just been this year and we went to many of the same places.


Gunes' cottage garden overlooking Bodrum

After this we headed to the communal pool. It is pretty massive and we spent all day pretty much until about 5 o'clock swimming and snoozing in the shade of the umbrellas. When we got back to the house Gunes invited us out to do a little bit of sightseeing with another french lady who was visiting Bodrum. So we picked up the french lady and headed off to explore the peninsular. First stop was this architect's place that was a museum, art gallery, cafe and also the architect's house. It was a really interesting building.

The Architects museum/cafe/gallery

We checked out the art gallery, then the museum- which is filled with things the architect has collected over the years, ottoman relics and other cool stuff, including a great 'blue glass collection.
After having a coffee in the open air cafe we left to explore Bodrum by car. 'Bodrum' is the name of the whole penninsular, not just the main town and there are lots of bays and smaller towns dotted all over the place so there is interesting views everywhere you look. Gunes took us to some of her favourite vantage points for some lovely views. We got to see the amazing sun set over the water and islands off the penninsular.
Gunes offered to take us out for dinner, the french lady declined (because she was staying with some other people) and so just us and Gunes headed into town for dinner. She took us to this really lovely yacht club at the marina, it had a great atmosphere and really awesome food. Again we talked about travel and had a really great time chatting with Gunes.

Bodrum Marina

Friday 17th

Today Gunes was kind enough to let us use her second car (a little convertable Copen), so Nick had his first go of driving on the right hand side. He did perfectly, didn't end up on the left once. We weren't going to drive through the crazy inner-Bodrum traffic (we wouldn't have found a park anyway) so we parked the car at Maccas and caught the Dolmus into town.

Cruising in the Copen- Thanks Gunes!
We walked all over the main town, fighting our way through the British tourists (all glowing bright pink). There are literally thousands of them in Bodrum, they're easy to spot because they're nowhere near as good looking as the Turkish people!!
We saw Bodrum castle which is pretty cool, walked along the Marina and saw a statue of Herodotus (and was immediately transported back to UCB and dusting the classics shelves) who was an author from ages ago (literally).
We ended up in a quiet cafe overlooking Bodrum beach (you could actually sit on the beach and they'd serve you there). The water looked devine but we hadn't brought our swimmers so made the trek back to Gunes's for a swim in the pool, and spent all afternoon there, but on the way home we cruised around the hills near Gunes house in the little copen, to see some of the views, lots of fun,
Nick hanging out in the pool

Gunes had a dinner party to go to that night but she'd cooked us some Turkish delicacies (the best damn green beans I've ever eaten!!!) all in all a great few days in Bodrum.
Gunes' beautiful kitty Milek (Angel)

Next stop: Fethiye!!