Our gang of seven, always on the look out for the lesser known sites in Turkey, was happily embarking upon our daytrip to Lake Bafa when we happened upon a road sign pointing to the right and saying ‘Euromos’ in white letters upon a brown background.

Historical or beautiful nature sites, like ruins, temples, lakes or parks, are always sign posted in that way in Turkey, so watch out because you will never know what you might discover.

Euromos is definitely a case in point and therefore my Europe travel tip for this week,

We were on the main road from Bodrum to Söke/Izmir heading for Lake Bafa. The road leads through olive tree country. It’s one of the foremost Turkish regions for olive plantations and production of olive oil. A mountainous landscape, dotted with olive trees is also very pretty to look at and reminiscent of the historical past. You just get the impression that not much has changed since the ancient Greeks and Romans lived, traded and worshipped their Gods in their flowing robes and elaborate sandals. In short, the scene was set for the discovery we made after turning off onto a narrow side road, winding up and down foothills and, after a last bend, opening on to a clearing, surrounded by a dense growth of olive trees and dominated by no less than twelve perfectly preserved and elaborately carved Corinthian columns which are the remains of an important temple to Zeus.

Apart from us, there were only two other visitors, no tourist buses, no kiosks, no souvenirs, just the majestic temple complex, olive trees, a few birds and scattered sheep and otherwise…silence.

An explanatory plaque surprised us with the fact that we were actually looking at the sixth best preserved temple ruins in the whole of Asia…and hardly anybody knows about it!!

The temple to Zeus in Euromos is believed to have been built under Emperor Hadrian in the 2^nd century AD. The temple isn’t very large as temples go, but the carved columns are some of the finest work of Corinthian stone masons. A few columns bear inscriptions which are the names of wealthy people who contributed donations to the construction of the temple.

Euromos was also a town, with the temple as its center piece and possibly once connected to the bigger town of Milas. You can climb around at your heart’s content and find remains of massive city walls as well as an agora and an amphitheatre which could hold between 5000 and 7000 people.

However, as well preserved as the temple is, the rest is still very much unearthed and only bits and pieces are visible which give an impression of how big the entire town must have been in ancient times. A site like this allows the imagination to run free and to play hobby archaeologist, digging your toes into the ground in the hopes of maybe making a discovery of your own. Be careful though, as this is a little visited site and you must mostly tread your own path and we did find a discarded snake skin! Hiking boots are strongly recommended.

Euromos is located at approx. 10 miles south of Lake Bafa so the combination of these two makes for a wonderful daytrip.