Ancient Myndos

From where we were anchored in the middle of Gümüşlük we could see the standard huge Turkish flagpole on the top of the hill to the west in the ancient Myndos fortress. The Turks do excellently sized flags to mark their territory and, as we watched from BV, this year’s flag was raised snapping out smartly in the strong meltemi. Not to miss a moment of patriotism, at night the flag is also very effectively floodlit. We resolved to climb up to the peak as well as to try to explore the remains of ancient Myndos.

Myndos was established by the Lelegians in 2000BC as one of the 8 cities on the Bodrum peninsula. What remains of the city is largely from the Mausolous period around 500BC. In 334BC Alexander the Great ‘visited’ Myndos taking it under his control but later, between 308 and 275BC it came under the Ptolemaic Dynasty based in Egypt. The city became independent in 196BC and minted its own coins. Myndos was included in the Province of Asia Minor in the Roman Empire (133BC) and it is rumoured that in 44BC Brutus and Cassius took refuge here after murdering Caesar. It is estimated that the city was abandoned in 14^th century AD.

A map on the wall in the village (based upon an old 1838 map) suggested that there would be an interesting selection of ruins to look at.

However, despite our best efforts, we found very little. The odd stone block and wall remains were scattered around and we found the remains of an old bath house and gateway but that was largely it. It didn’t help that most of the site seemed to be surrounded by private land making access difficult.

So, our outing turned into a walk around the coast looking at the Greek islands and a climb up to the flagpole summit.

View over the site of ancient Myndos

Submerged old ruined pier and the causeway to rabbit island

The climb was well worth it for the great views down into the harbour and across the site of the old city. The submerged old ruined pier and the causeway out to rabbit island stood out very clearly from this vantage point. Plus we had an excellent view of BV anchored in the middle of the harbour.

On our way back we visted the excellent bakery and came away with bread, simit (bread rings covered in sesame seeds, a little like pretzels) and some baklava. The simit went well with humus and the small pieces of baklava were a great addition to our next coffee break.

We loitered for several days in Gümüşlük waiting for the meltemi to abate. The anchorage provided excellent shelter from the wind blown waves outside but the low land of the isthmus provided little shelter from the wind when it veered from the northwest to the north. As a result, we had a few uncomfortable moments, as BV surged back on her anchor chain on some particularly strong gusts, when we wondered how well the anchor really was dug in. When we came to leave, however, it became apparent that it was extremely well dug in. The chain had also tucked itself under the edge of a rock as BV had swung which took a little careful manoeuvring to release. If we’d know that we would have slept much more soundly as the meltemi howled and we would not have felt the need to keep an anchor watch on the night that the wind was at its strongest, but that’s the way of things.

The next leg of our journey would take us a little further north into the bay on the north side of the Bodrum peninsula to the site of a castle built by the Knights of St John.

Gümüşlük , Turkey