Ferries from Bodrum

A crusader castle sits between the two halves of this harbour, and it was built out of one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world. The Knights Hospitaller began the Castle of St Peter in 1402 and fortified it with marble and stone taken from the collapsed Mausoleum of Halicarnassus — the tomb that gave every later mausoleum its name.

The castle is the landmark you navigate by

It dominates the waterfront and the marina and is visible from most of the town, which makes it the reference point for finding anything at this port. Inside is the Museum of Underwater Archaeology, founded in 1962, holding finds from wrecks spanning 32 centuries — from the sixteenth century BC to the sixteenth AD.

Much of that collection was first brought up by Bodrum's sponge divers before archaeologists took over, which is a fair description of how the town's relationship with this water has worked for a long time.

The same order of knights held Kos

The Hospitallers who built this castle also ruled Kos, thirty minutes across the water, where the Nerantzia Castle guards that harbour in the same way. The two fortresses face each other across a strait that is now an EU external border.

That is the historical shape of this crossing: two fortified harbours built by the same people to watch the same water, now separated by passport control.

What sails from here

Our timetable holds 8 routes and 6 active sailings from Bodrum. The Kos crossing is the short one and the busiest, at roughly 30 minutes; there are further links into the Dodecanese — Leros at about 60 minutes and Tilos at around 2 h 30 m — plus seasonal domestic services along the Turkish coast.

Which quay each uses, what the border formalities involve and how the season works are covered on the Bodrum guide rather than repeated here.

⚠ Marina, cruise berth and ferry quay are three different things

Bodrum's waterfront carries all three, and they are not interchangeable. A yacht marina, a cruise berth taking large ships, and the passenger quays for the Greek and coastal services occupy different parts of the same bay.

Directions given as "the harbour" are therefore ambiguous. Use the castle as the fixed point and the specific quay name from your ticket as the destination.

The town behind the water

Bodrum is Halicarnassus, and the Mausoleum's site is a short walk inland — mostly foundations, because the stone is in the castle. The ancient theatre is on the hillside above the town.

It is an unusual amount of history for a harbour that most visitors experience as the place they catch a boat to a Greek island.