Bodrum brunching favourite
Market days: Thursday (fruit & veg), Sunday (flea market)
Bitez, on the southern shore of the Bodrum Peninsula, does not initially look especially inspiring as you come in past the new courthouse (Adliye Sarayı). However, it has become THE place to come for a Sunday brunch with intense competition for the trade in breakfasts both Turkish and English. Pass up the breakfast on offer in your hotel for the chance to chill out with the cool crowd at the New Season or Lemon Tree restaurants, where tables spill out onto the sands and jazz plays from behind the heaving tables.
Otherwise there’s not a great deal to do here except recline on a range of loungers on a thin strip of sand, sway in a hammock beneath the palms, read your Kindle on one of the piled-up cushions or perhaps take a boat trip round the bay.
Determined sightseers might want to hop off the bus before it gets down to the beach when they see a yellow sign marked “Chapel Walkway” on the lefthand side of the road from Bodrum. Here they will find the shell of a small church with a mosaic floor. A locked gate prevents inspection of the main mosaic but immediately in front of it the pavement is decorated with a design of leaping dolphins. 
A shady path winds down from beside the church to the village beach. I didn’t walk all the way along it but it looked pretty promising.
Transport info
Frequent dolmuşes to Bitez from Bodrum otogar stop just steps away from the beach.
