Petronium

Bodrum, Turkey - After our delicious lunch Brittany and I headed to St. Peter's Castle aka Petronium, Bodrum Castle, the Castle of St. Petrus...

A little history lesson for everyone, sorry, but I am big history buff. The castle was built in the 15th century (1403 AD) by the Knights of Rhodes. This was during the crusades in the middle ages (shout out to my history Professor Dr. Dameron at Saint Michael's).

Anyways, the castle was built using lots of materials from the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus (built around 350 BC and is one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World) which is also located right in Bodrum. The Knights installed lots of carved reliefs and paintings of many different coat of arms and over 200 still remain in the castle from many different grand masters, countries, knights, and religious figures (see picture below for sample).

The castle remained in the Knights of Rhodes possession until the summer of 1522 when Sultan Suleiman (longest ruling Sultan in Ottoman history) defeated the Knights on the island of Rhodes and in turn inherited St. Peter's Castle.

In the upcoming years, the castle saw uses for different purposes: military base for Turkish army during the Greek Revolt in 1824, 1895 became a prison, 1915 faced heavy artillery fire from the French navy during World War I (which caused lots of damage see above picture taken in 1964), and was occupied by the Italians after WWI until Ataturk came to power in 1921 and then became vacant for 40 years.

Picure time!