Holland America Blog
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Holland America Blog Has Just Posted the Following:
We had a scheduled arrival today of 10 am and that also gave the not-so-early risers the chance to see the ship coming into port. Bodrum is located in a curve of the land at the end of a very wide inlet. I call it a curve as it is really too wide to be called a bay. In 2010 they constructed a pier long enough to take two 1000 ft. ships and that is where we docked. We were the only ship in, as the real cruise ship season has not yet started. Also the Holiday Makers are not there yet. It is still too chilly to bake on the beach and for most Europeans it is still too early for a vacation. *Come back in 4 weeks’ time; and Bodrum will be buzzing. But today the guests had the whole area virtually to themselves. When coming in, there is one building which dominates the area and draws all attention; Bodrum Castle or St. Peters Castle. A Roman Catholic name as it is a left over from the days of the Knights of St. John who had a base here since the Middle Ages. The current building was constructed from 1402 onwards and was modified several times to deal with threats by Muslim Forces and impact of gunpowder. The Castle was built as a strong hold to complement the Knight Templars hold on Kos, a Greek Island not too far away. Most of the material for the Castle came from the Mausoleum of Mausollos. With every expansion and strengthening of the building more material was “borrowed†until hardly anything remained of the Mausoleum. The Castle is in such a good condition as it never saw real warfare. It was handed over to the Ottoman Empire when the Knight Templars lost their stronghold on Kos.* Now it is a museum for underwater archeology and a very famous one as well, with a very nice layout. Mausollos was a Satrap in the Persian Empire and when he died his wife built a tomb for him so magnificent that we still use […]
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We had a scheduled arrival today of 10 am and that also gave the not-so-early risers the chance to see the ship coming into port. Bodrum is located in a curve of the land at the end of a very wide inlet. I call it a curve as it is really too wide to be called a bay. In 2010 they constructed a pier long enough to take two 1000 ft. ships and that is where we docked. We were the only ship in, as the real cruise ship season has not yet started. Also the Holiday Makers are not there yet. It is still too chilly to bake on the beach and for most Europeans it is still too early for a vacation. *Come back in 4 weeks’ time; and Bodrum will be buzzing. But today the guests had the whole area virtually to themselves. When coming in, there is one building which dominates the area and draws all attention; Bodrum Castle or St. Peters Castle. A Roman Catholic name as it is a left over from the days of the Knights of St. John who had a base here since the Middle Ages. The current building was constructed from 1402 onwards and was modified several times to deal with threats by Muslim Forces and impact of gunpowder. The Castle was built as a strong hold to complement the Knight Templars hold on Kos, a Greek Island not too far away. Most of the material for the Castle came from the Mausoleum of Mausollos. With every expansion and strengthening of the building more material was “borrowed†until hardly anything remained of the Mausoleum. The Castle is in such a good condition as it never saw real warfare. It was handed over to the Ottoman Empire when the Knight Templars lost their stronghold on Kos.* Now it is a museum for underwater archeology and a very famous one as well, with a very nice layout. Mausollos was a Satrap in the Persian Empire and when he died his wife built a tomb for him so magnificent that we still use […]
Click here to view the article.
