Castle of St Peter

When Tamerlane invaded Anatolia in 1402, throwing the nascent Ottoman Empire temporarily off balance, the Knights Hospitaller based in Rhodes took the opportunity to capture Bodrum. By 1437 they had erected the Castle of St Peter, which they continued to augment with new defensive features – including moats, walls and water cisterns – over the ensuing decades. However, in 1522, when Süleyman the Magnificent captured the Knights' headquarters in Rhodes, the Bodrum contingent was forced to abandon the castle without having ever truly tested its fearsome defensive capabilities. The castle fell into decline during the succeeding centuries and suffered some shell damage during WWI. Reconstruction didn't begin in earnest until the 1960s, when it was used as an informal storage space for the booty collected during underwater archaeology missions, before becoming, in 1986, Bodrum's Museum of Underwater Archaeology.

It's an excellent museum and arguably the most important of its kind in the world, with imaginatively displayed, well-lit items, accompanied by plenty of information panels, maps, models, reconstructions, drawings, murals, dioramas and videos.

The views of the town from the battalions are spectacular and worth the entry price alone. As the museum is spread throughout the castle, you need two hours to do it justice. Arrows suggest routes around it (red for long; green for short), but guides are not available.

As you head up the stone ramp into the castle past a Crusader coats of arms carved in marble and mounted on the stone walls, keep an eye out for bits of marble filched from the ancient Mausoleum. The ramp leads to the castle's main court, centred on an ancient mulberry tree. To the left is a long display of amphorae – the castle owns one of the largest collections in the world – with examples from the 14th century BC to the present day, all recovered from the waters of southwest Turkey. The adjoining courtyard cafe, adorned with Greek and Roman statuary, provides a shady resting place, and there's a small glass-blowing workshop where you can watch glass bottles and jewellery being created (similar to those recovered from coastal wrecks).

The chapel here contains both a one tenth-size complete model and a full-sized reconstruction of the stern of a late-Roman ship discovered off Yassıada. Visitors can walk the decks, stand at the helm, look below decks at the cargo of wine and peek into the galley.

Follow the path to the left of the chapel to ascend to the towers. Here you'll find the entrance to the Glass Wreck Hall. As you enter, look for the castle-shaped dovecote on the castle wall. Discovered by a sponge diver in 1973 and excavated by the American Professor George Bass and a team of marine archaeologists, the 16m-long, 5m-wide ship sank in AD 1025 while carrying 3 tonnes of mainly broken glass between Fatimid Syria and the Black Sea.

Next up is a small Glass Hall where glass finds from the 15th century BC to the 14th century AD are displayed. The assorted Mycenean beads, Roman glass bottles and Islamic weights are kept in near darkness, with each piece backlit individually so as to better reveal its delicate structure. Next door is a small exhibition of coins, including numerous examples from ancient Caria.

Beyond, the French Tower has finds taken from the Tektaş Burnu, the only ancient Greek shipwreck (thought to date from around 480 BC to 400 BC) from the classical period to be fully excavated. Displays include numerous amphorae, talismanic marble discs, kitchen utensils, as well as photographs of the excavation itself, which took place off the coast of the Çesme Peninsula in 2001.

Next door, the Carian Princess Hall holds the remains and effects of a high-status woman, discovered by Turkish archaeologists in 1989. Though popularly said to belong to Queen Ada, the last Carian queen, who was brought back from exile and installed as monarch by Alexander the Great following his conquest of Halicarnassus in 334 BC, there is no concrete evidence for this. Buried with a gold crown, necklace, bracelets, rings and an exquisite wreath of gold myrtle leaves, her identity doesn't lessen the incredible value of the find.

Guarding the castle's southeast corner, the English Tower was built during the reign of King Henry IV of England (whose coat of arms is displayed above the entrance to the uppermost hall) and is now fitted out as a medieval refectory with a long central dining table surrounded by suits of armour, stag horns and the standards of the Grand Masters of the Knights Hospitaller and their Turkish adversaries. Piped medieval music plays in the background giving the place the feel of a Crusader Knights theme restaurant. Look out for the Latin graffiti carved into the stone window ledges by Crusaders.

Just to the north is the Uluburun Wreck Hall containing an extraordinary gallery of Bronze Age shipwrecks. Its principal exhibit is the 14th-century BC Uluburun, the oldest excavated shipwreck in the world. There are full-size replicas of the ship's interior and the wreck site on the seabed. The aptly named Treasure Room holds a wealth of finds, including Canaanite gold jewellery, bronze daggers, ivory cosmetic boxes, wooden writing boards and the gold scarab of Queen Nefertiti of Egypt.

Further north, descend the Gatineau Tower to the dungeons beneath. Over the inner gate is the inscription 'Inde Deus abest' (Where God does not exist). The dungeon was used as a place of confinement and torture by the Knights from 1513 to 1523. A sign warns that the exhibits of torture implements might not be suitable for children, but most video-game-hardened visitors will find the display dummies and the taped groans more laughable than disturbing.