Bodrum is a district and a port city in Muğla Province, in the southwestern Aegean Region of Turkey. it has a population of 36,000 inhabitants. It is located on the southern coast of Bodrum Peninsula, at a point that checks the entry into the Gulf of Gökova, and is also the center of the eponymous district. The city was called Halicarnassus of Caria in ancient times and was famous for housing the Mausoleum of Mausolus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Bodrum Castle, built by the Crusaders in the 15th century, overlooks the harbour and the marina. The castle grounds include a Museum of Underwater Archeology and hosts several cultural festivals throughout the year. The Greek Island of Kos can be reached within 30 minutes by ship. Bodrum has an active tourist economy.
Bodrum was a quiet town of fishermen and sponge divers until the mid-20th century; although, as Mansur points out, the presence of a large community of bilingual Cretan Turks, coupled with the conditions of free trade and access with the islands of the Southern Dodecanese until 1935 saved it from utter provincialism. The fact that traditional agriculture was not a very rewarding activity in the rather dry peninsula also prevented the formation of a class of large landowners. Bodrum has no notable history of political or religious extremism either. A first nucleus of intellectuals started to form after the 1950s around the writer Cevat Şakir Kabaağaçlı, who had first come here in exile two decades before and was charmed by the town to the point of adopting the pen name Halikarnas Balıkçısı (‘The Fisherman of Halicarnassus’).
[caption id="attachment_230365" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Flag of Europe[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]The European Political Community (EPC) is a platform for political and strategic discussions about the future of Europe, established in 2022. The group first met in October 2022 in Prague, with participants from 44 European countries, as well as the President of the European Council and the President of the European Commission.
The EPC was proposed by the French president Emmanuel Macron in May 2022, in his role as t...
[caption id="attachment_216502" align="aligncenter" width="421"] Félix Nadar (1820-1910) portraits Jules Verne[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Jules Gabriel Verne was a French novelist, poet, and playwright. His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the Voyages extraordinaires, a series of bestselling adventure novels including Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870), and Around the World in Eighty Days (1872).
Verne is considered to be an i...
