My Mom came to visit bodrum for a week and it was fantastic!! We tried to do as much as possible while still giving her a proper relaxing vacation :)
instead of describing each day, i figured I'd touch on some of the cool things we did - like visiting ruins, eating beautiful Turkish meals, and taking in the scenery :)
One of the best meals we had together was her first full day in town. We walked to a local restaurant to have a proper turkish breakfast - or as Paris calls it "a taste explosion"! They bring you out what seems like an endless amount of jams (reçel), butter (tereyağ), honey (bal) and other spreads with a huge variety of cheese (peynir) along with a beautiful basket of breads (ekmek). Their breads are all homemade (pide breads) and some are even fried. They also make homemade cigarette börek (a turkish type of salty pastry). They also bring out a plate of fresh tomatos (domates), cucmbers (salatılık), and greens. On top of all of that you can order eggs (yumurta). My mom and Paris each got a type of scrambled egg and I opted out (not my thing).
It really was a taste explosion. combining all the different types of cheeses with jams with that tasty bread was so wonderful. I over ate and was happy i did so. Afterwards we all got some traditional turkish coffee (kahve) and digested under the sun!
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| fun outdoor picnic type seating! |
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| This picture is actually from when Paris and I took Kate to the same turkish breakfast place in Nov 2013! The food layout is very similar to the one we had with my mom :) :) |
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| oh hey cutie |
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| traditional Turkish Kahve cups with some turkish delights (lokum) on the tray |
Betul (my mother in law - kayınpeder) and I took my mom to the Halikarnassos Mausoleum in the downtown Bodrum Area. It is actually the original Mausoleum, named for whom it was dedicated to, Mausolus. He was the ruler of the Persian Empire at one point and moved the capital to Halikarnassos (modern day bodrum). His wife had it built for him. Only the basement survives today (because a lot of its stones were used for the Bodrum castle!). So we toured the basement which is still pretty impressive. There is a great indoor area that explains the history of the region and the structure (in much more detail than what I just gave you :) ). There are sketches off all the hypothesized ideas of how the structure originally appeared. They settled on what you see today in any Art History 101 class.
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| Mom and the replica |
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| Betül and mom getting their learn on |
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| original drainage system |
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| cave dwellers |
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| cus that's what this column drum is for |
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| mosaic! |
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| we're still down here, someone send help... |
What a cool thing to find in your backyard... well i guess not if it means you have to leave the property....
After the Mausoleum we wanted to go tour the Bodrum Castle. The day was a little overcast and we found out that during the off-season the castle closes early so we'd only have an hour. We decided to put it off for a day and walked around the castle and downtown for a bit. Here are some pictures from that. I hope my mom doesn't mind how many photos of her are up! :)
It was a lot of fun exploring downtown with my mom :)
I'll put another post out later today showing some more of our adventures and food wonderfulnessessss
Your mom doesn't mind how many pictures of her are up. xxoo
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