The Turkish Riviera, also known as the Turquoise Coast, stretches for 600 miles from Alanya in the east, along the country’s north-west shores to Çesme. Much of this coastline is dramatic and beautiful; some of the towns are delightful, some scruffy, and some, such as Altinkum, are victims of massive over-development that is cheap and nasty. But the jewel in this riviera’s crown is the fat fist of the Bodrum peninsula – and it is here that you will find Turkey’s own version of St Tropez.

For many years the land mass belonged to Bodrum town and the villagers whose principal living came from fishing, farming and sponge-diving. But in the 1930s Bodrum became the haunt of intellectuals and artists and, later, the site of summer homes for wealthy families from Istanbul, also attracting some British, German and Scandinavian holidaymakers.