Well, while Britain enjoyed a mini heatwave, I headed for the sea, the Aegean Sea to be precise.Karen and I returned to Gumbet,Turkey after 4 years absence and caught up with some old friends.Bodrum is the main town, on the hill to the left of the castle you will see some windmills, from there you look down on Gumbet on the other side, more on that later. Bodrum was originally known as Halicarnassus and was the seat of power for the Carian Kings.When King Mausolus died in 353 BC his Wife and Sister had a monumental grave/temple built to house his remains on the promontory.Artemisia, Antipater of Sidon lists The Tomb of Mausolus as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.To this day grand tombs are generically known as Mausoleums. Bodrum is now a center for tourism and the place to be if you like boats, shopping and eating.If you approach Bodrum by land or water you can't miss the castle, built on the promontory which juts out into the bay. Confronted with the invasion of Seljuk Turks, the Knights Hospitaller of the Order of Saint John, headquartered on the island of Rhodes, needed another stronghold on the mainland. Grand Master Philibert de Naillac (1396-1421) found a suitable site across from the island of Kos, where there was already a castle of the Order. This location had already been the site of a fortification in Doric times (1110 BC) and of a small Seljuk castle in the 11th century. The construction of the castle began in 1402 under the German knight-architect Heinrich Schlegelholt. Construction workers were guaranteed a reservation in Heaven by a papal decree of 1409.They used squared green volcanic stone, marble columns and reliefs from the nearby Mausoleum of Mausolus to fortify the castle. The first walls were completed in 1437. The chapel was among the first completed inner structures (probably 1406).It consists of a vaulted nave and an apse. The chapel was reconstructed in Gothic style by Spanish Knights in 1519-1520. Their names can be found on two cornerstones of the facade. Fourteen cisterns for collecting rainwater were excavated in the rocks under the castle. Each tongue of the Order had its own tower, each in it's own style. Each tongue, each headed by a bailli, was responsible for the maintenance and defence of a specific portion of the fortress and responsible for manning it with sufficient numbers of knights and soldiers. There were seven gates leading to the inner part of the fortress.The construction of the three-storied English tower was finished in 1413. One door opens to the north, to the inner part of the castle; The other door leads to the western rampart. One could only access this tower via a drawbridge. The western facade shows an antique carved relief of a lion. Because of this relief, the tower was also called "the Lion Tower". Above this lion, one can see the coat of arms of king Henry IV of England. For over a century St. Peter's Castle remained the second most important castle of the Order. It served as a refuge for all Christians in Asia Minor. The castle came under attack with the rise of the Ottoman Empire, first after the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and again in 1480 by sultan Mehmed II.All attacks were repelled by the Knights.