A Short Break From Fethiye - Bodrum

If you're staying in Fethiye for a while (either because you live here or you're on a long holiday) and you fancy a change of scenery - not that you'd ever want to leave Fethiye of course, but you know what I mean - then we can highly recommend Bodrum. But there's a difference. We can highly recommend Bodrum in winter! And we're writing purely about Bodrum here - not Gümbet or any other area around there. 

A view of Bodrum Harbour from St. Peter's Castle

The first time we ever went to Bodrum was in the summer of 2002. We were in Fethiye on holiday (for the third time) and a Turkish friend who was on holiday in Bodrum asked us to go and meet them there. Loads of travel advice from our hotel staff and we were off. Our first 'big' travel adventure in Turkey actually but again, that's another story. We were there for one night and to be honest, for us, it was the night from hell. If you like the sort of place where you get bars with very loud outdoor music and they're all in a row so you can't actually hear one bit of music OR have a conversation, then maybe you would have liked Bodrum at that time. (We don't know if Bodrum is still like that.) I personally thought it was awful - and then I woke up the morning after (about 8 am after going to bed at about 5am) and went for a walk...

...Bodrum is exceptionally pretty and I wanted to go back there - in better circumstances (not summer). The Castle of St. Peter on a small peninsula in the sea, 2-storey, flat roofed, white-washed houses nestling into the bay and cobbled streets in the old town.

Luxury yachts in Bodrum Marina

We went back there in November 2008 with friends and stayed overnight and we saw a completely different side to the town. We stayed in Artemis Pension on the seafront for a very reasonable amount (70 lira for the room, with breakfast and a view of the bay as in the second photo). Some guidebooks say that Bodrum is purely a summer town. This is very far from true. It may be true of Gümbet which seemed completely closed down for the winter but Bodrum - as we've been told by Turkish friends - is a bit of a playground for Turkish pop / rock stars and actors who live in Istanbul but have holiday homes there. We were expecting Bodrum to be sleepy in winter but all is active - and in a nice way. As you can see in the photos, the weather wasn't the best but it didn't matter.

It's got a completely different feel to it from anywhere else in Turkey that we've been to (except maybe Istanbul). It matches the 'rich and famous' description. Still very chilled and pretty but all the restaurants and bars were packed even on a November Sunday night and you can spot the odd club where you know there's no way you're going to get in in your scruffs just for a quick beer. The cheapest beer we found was 6 lira (£2.50) and that was just a normal lokanta place. After dinner we went to a rock bar / nightclub in the old town. An amazing club that was great early on because it was buy one, get one free on drinks. 5 lira a drink. That means later of course that it's 10 lira a beer. Not cheap I know but it was worth it for us for a one off. The toilets were great too (always a winner) because they had album covers for wallpaper - hours of entertainment. Relived some forgotten youth.

What we're trying to say is, Bodrum is a fantastic, chilled, pretty, cosmopolitan (which means things are a tad on the pricey side - but we all like a treat every now and then) town. Certainly not what we expected at all (but maybe that's just us). Loads of different busy bars and restaurants, lovely harbour and of course, St. Peter's Castle...and as I've said before, after you've spent a good couple of days there, Fethiye is always a lovely place to come back to.

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