Inland Carian Day Trip from Bodrum: Stratonikeia, Lagina and Euromos

While millions of visitors pass through Milas on the highway between the airport and Bodrum, turning just 15 to 45 minutes further inland into the olive-covered valleys of ancient Caria reveals three extraordinary classical sites where you can walk down marble avenues with almost no other tourists in sight.

1. Euromos and the Temple of Zeus Lepsynos (45 minutes from Bodrum Town)

Right beside the Milas, İzmir highway amidst an ancient silver-green olive grove stands the Temple of Zeus Lepsynos at Euromos, built in the 2nd century AD under Roman Emperor Hadrian and ranking as one of the six best-preserved Roman temples in all of Asia Minor. Sixteen fluted Corinthian marble columns still stand to their full height holding up their architrave, each carved with an intact vertical stone panel recording the name of the wealthy local physician or magistrate who paid for that individual column (four columns on the northern side were left unfluted when funding ran out), backed by an unexcavated hillside theatre and defensive walls.

2. UNESCO-Tentative Stratonikeia ("The City of Eternal Love and Gladiators", 1 hour 10 mins from Bodrum)

Thirty-five kilometres east of Milas along the Muğla highway lies Stratonikeia (Eskihisar), one of the most atmospheric archaeological sites in Turkey. What makes Stratonikeia unique in the world is that Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, 14th-century Menteşe Beylik, 19th-century Ottoman and early Republican stone buildings all stand side by side along the exact same marble streets:

• Why you must see it: enter past rows of carved Roman gladiator tombstones (Stratonikeia housed a major gladiator training school where retired fighters were buried outside the North City Gate), walk through the monumental Gymnasium (the largest known gymnasium of antiquity at 105 metres wide) and the Bouleuterion (Council House), whose outer walls are inscribed with Roman Emperor Diocletian's 301 AD price-control edict listing the maximum legal price of 200 everyday items from olive oil to sandals, alongside a 17th-century Ottoman poem.
• The 1876 Ottoman Village Square: right in the middle of the ancient marble ruins stands a functioning 19th-century village coffeehouse shaded by giant plane trees, the 14th-century Şaban Ağa Mosque and cobbled stone paths paved in the 1800s (famous as a filming location for Turkish cinema), where you can drink tea served in copper trays after walking the 10,000-seat Hellenistic theatre.

3. Lagina Sanctuary of Hecate (10 km north of Stratonikeia)

Connected to Stratonikeia in antiquity by a paved sacred processional road, Lagina was the principal sanctuary of the mysterious three-bodied Carian goddess Hecate, preserving its stepped marble propylon gate, altar and Corinthian temple columns.