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Basking in Bodrum

Whether you're after culture or lazy days on the beach, the year-round sun and attractions - ancient and modern - of Turkey's Aegean coast are guaranteed to delight, says Solange Hando

"Welcome. You like Turkey?” The old woman adjusted her headscarf and, with a wide smile, plucked a couple of tangerines from the tree. Orchards all around, so heavy with fruit they barely rustled in the breeze, seemed to glow in the midday sun. The sea shimmered as boats sailed around the islands, just as they did when Antony and Cleopatra frolicked on these shores more than 2,000 years ago.

For our Turkish holiday, we had opted for the Aegean coast, basing ourselves in the pretty resort of Bodrum.

That’s on the Asian side, Anatolia, which covers 97 per cent of the country.

Our villa was sky blue and white, local style, clinging to the hillside above the jumble of sugar cube houses rising from the town. Beyond them, in the curve of the bay, the crusaders’ castle held centre stage on a rocky headland, guarding the beach on one side and the harbour on the other.

The Knights of St John have long gone and the castle has a new life as the Museum of Underwater Archaeology, full of artefacts from ancient shipwrecks. We marvelled at stacks of amphorae, luminous glass bowls and bottles, green, amber and blue, before wandering around the shaded gardens, past screeching peacocks, to ramparts offering magical views over land and sea.

Up on Goktepe Hill, the Roman amphitheatre basked in the sun while, in a quiet lane downtown, the Mausoleum, once one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, lay scattered in ruins under a flowering jacaranda.

Turtle Beach (Iztuzu)

Bodrum is a place to relax – on the beach, over lunch at the harbourside or strolling along the palm-fringed promenade. Or you can wander the cobbled lanes to bargain for leather sandals, T-shirts, jewellery, ornaments and ‘blue eye’ charms 'guaranteed' to bing you luck. Test these in the dappled shade where men sell lottery tickets and freshly-baked sesame sticks.

If you want to get active, there’s plenty to do. Take the family to the Ortakent Aquapark, cruise around the bay on a mini voyage, try a spot of surfing, parasailing or waterskiing, bounce on a banana boat, or snorkel among shoals of rainbow-coloured fish.

We were content just to watch the boats skimming the waves, the bronze bodies lazing on the beach and the windsails fluttering in the wind. But one sunny morning, adventure beckoned and we decided to explore a little. We could have joined a jeep safari or hired a car to tackle the twisting coastal roads, but it was far more fun to travel by dolmus as the locals do, hopping on and off the minibus for minimum cost and maximum thrill, especially on market day when baskets spill out melons or apricots on your lap and you might share the ride with a gaggle of free range chickens.