Selimiye Castle

Selimiye lies on the east side of the Bozburun peninsula in Mugla province, on a bay that opens into the Hisaronu Gulf, about 43 km from Marmaris - some fifty minutes by road around the headlands. Above the waterfront, on the hill behind the village, stand the walls of a Byzantine castle built to watch the farmland and the shipping lane below.

The castle

The fortress is dated to the 13th century, and the masonry of its walls is the main evidence for its Byzantine origin. It was put there to oversee the agricultural land around the bay and the approaches to the Hisaronu Gulf, part of a wider effort to keep grain production up and commercial harbours safe. It is not the only fortification on this stretch: three castle ruins belonging to the ancient settlement of Hydas survive nearby - one on the highest hill above Selimiye, one on Sarikaya Hill, and Asarkale at Kizilkoy. Hellenistic city walls run along the southeast side of the bay, and finds from the Archaic period show the site was occupied long before any of the castles went up.

Hydas, Losta, Selimiye

The ancient name of the place was Hydas, one of the Carian settlements of the Bozburun peninsula. Later it was known as Losta, the name still carried by the village patisserie, and it became Selimiye after the Ottoman sultan Selim I. Kizilkoy - 'red village' - is the neighbouring locality that holds the third of the castle ruins.

The village today

Selimiye has become one of the better-known stops around Marmaris without turning into a resort. There are no nightclubs and no beach clubs. The waterfront is a line of small fish restaurants, pensions and boatyards, and the bay is deep and clear rather than sandy, so swimming is from jetties and platforms instead of a beach. Gulets and yachts moor stern-to along the quay, which is the main evening entertainment for everyone sitting at the tables behind them.

Boat trips and the Turgut waterfall

Day boats leave the quay at around nine in the morning and are back by six, working the islands and coves of the Hisaronu Gulf with lunch included - usually fish, cooked on board. Inland, the waterfall at Turgut is roughly 10 km away; from the signposted turning it is a walk of about 200 metres to the falls, which run hardest in spring and stay cold through the summer.

Goat's milk desserts

The village is known for desserts made with goat's milk. Losta, the patisserie named after the old name of the village, is where most of them are made, and the Rodos baklava is the one to order. Fish comes off boats tied up a few metres from the tables, and the smaller kitchens along the front cook the standard Aegean meze range alongside it.

The climb up to the castle takes a short walk from the waterfront, and the view from the walls takes in the whole bay, the fish farms out in the gulf and the ridges of the peninsula behind - which is why Selimiye ends up on almost every route drawn for anyone chartering a gulet from Marmaris.