Bozukkale

Bozukkale is a deep bay near the southern tip of the Bozburun peninsula, roughly 35 km by sea from Marmaris, with the ruins of ancient Loryma on the ridge above it. The Turkish name means "ruined castle", which is what the fortress on the hill has looked like for a long time. There is no road in and no mains electricity: you arrive by boat, or on foot.

Loryma and its fortress

Loryma belonged to the Rhodian Peraia, the strip of Anatolian mainland that Rhodes governed as its own territory, and the harbour lies about 23 km from Rhodes town - twenty Roman miles, in the ancient sources. The fortress above the bay is the reason people make the climb: a curtain wall of squared limestone blocks laid without mortar, standing up to around eight metres in places, with towers set along it and cisterns, tombs and terraces on the slopes below. It is one of the best-preserved late Classical fortifications anywhere on this coast, and it was built to watch the entrance of the bay.

A staging post for fleets

The bay is deep, easy to defend and a short crossing from Rhodes, so fleets used it. In 395 BC the Athenian commander Conon assembled his ships here with the Persian satrap Pharnabazus, the year before the two of them destroyed the Spartan fleet off Cnidus. In 305 BC Demetrius Poliorcetes, son of Antigonus, made Loryma his main port and supply base for the siege of Rhodes. Later a Roman fleet used the bay to keep clear of Hannibal's ships, and Cassius gathered his forces here before moving against Rhodes.

Old charts record the harbour as Aplothiki, from the Greek hoplotheke, meaning an armoury or arsenal - a store for weapons rather than a shipyard, as it is sometimes translated.

Anchoring, eating and the climb

Boats anchor in the bay and take a line ashore. A couple of small restaurants have their own wooden pontoons, will take your lines and cook whatever has been caught that day; beyond them there is no shop, no road and no street lighting. A rough path leads up to the fortress from the head of the bay, a steep scramble over loose stone, and from the walls you can pick out Rhodes, Symi, Halki and Alimia on a clear day. Walkers reach Bozukkale overland from Taslica on the Carian Trail; everyone else comes by sea.

Ekmekci Burnu

The headland you pass on the way in is Ekmekci Burnu, the baker's cape. The story told locally is that a boat was lost off it in a storm and its skipper drowned, and crews passing the point throw pieces of bread into the water for the men the sea has taken. Turkish boats still do it.

The bay today

The water here is among the cleanest on this coast, deep and clear, with large rocks along the shoreline running out until the bottom falls away; turtles and dolphins are both seen in the bay. Because it takes a long leg to reach and has no land access for vehicles, Bozukkale stays quieter than the anchorages closer to town, and it is a popular stop for gulet charter guests exploring Marmaris for exactly that reason - a bay with a Hellenistic fortress over it and nothing else, which you can only get to on a boat.