Forget France: The cool crowd has found Europe's next must-visit riviera

White houses across the bay are bathing in the honeyed glow of late afternoon.

Water laps beneath wooden decking. Guests with impeccable tans waft around the bar where a Brazilian bossa nova singer croons into a microphone under a bower of pink bougainvillea.

This is the view from my cushioned sun-lounger at the legendary Macakizi Hotel, near Bodrum, on Turkey's Turquoise Coast.

It's a laid-back Gatsby kind of vibe but I'm regretting, what is it, my second gin martini? The man lounged next to me is wearing a psychedelic fish shirt so animated by the sea breeze that we are both drowning in a school of blue damsels. We are hallucinating; half on land, half on sea.

"Okay, I'm going to show you something now," he says, regaining focus and flicking open his iPhone. "We have just found this!"

A 4000-year-old ceramic pot, perfectly curvaceous, materialises in front of my languid eyes. It is the only intact piece of Minoan pottery found underwater anywhere in the world.

"We found it just out there," he says, waving his hand over Gokova Bay.

Sobriety is swift in the presence of such ethereal beauty. Now I remember. Fish man is Zafer Kizilkaya. He is the marine conservationist and underwater photographer who persuaded the Turkish government to enforce a protected area over more than 480 kilometres of ocean along the Mediterranean coast.

The environmentalist is not just here to ignite the senses at the inaugural three-day MedBodrum International Festival of Art - influential in its mix of world-renowned chefs, musicians and artists - but to focus attention on the serious subject of sustainability.

The seaside resort city of Bodrum is one of Europe's glitziest holiday destinations with an abundance of blissful hotels and excellent cuisine but these pretty coves have been severely nature-depleted through overfishing and tourism.

As founder of the Mediterranean Conservation Society, Kizilkaya fostered an innovative plan, training local fishers as marine rangers to recover the waterways. He challenged some of Turkey's Michelin-starred chefs to come to the party by expanding their menus with the tropical fish that have invaded the Mediterranean, via the Suez Canal, as water has warmed through climate change. Eating the problem has helped reduce the threat to the ecosystem posed by fish that prey on native species and overgraze vegetation with few predators.

One of these invaders is swimming past us now. On a plate. It is a lion fish (Asian baligi) reimagined as a lemony ceviche. The waiter bows, offers deliciously dripping morsels, then Kizilkaya continues his story.

That pot "created 2000 years before Jesus was born" was found at a sea depth of less than 50 metres but the world remains oblivious to the discovery. Hoisted from a sandy grave, it is now undergoing conservation, at Bodrum Museum of Archaeology. "The shallow waters of the Aegean Sea in front of us are not protected," Kizilkaya whispers. "We must keep this secret until there is more excavation because people anchor their boats and dance above the waves in this bay."

They're dancing on the terrace now, decorous people swaying to the ebb and flow of the tide, falling in love with the tiny village of Turkbuku at the northern end of Bodrum peninsula that, until recently, had changed so little. The area slipped into obscurity through much of the 20th century but emerged with fresh, post-pandemic energy to become one of the most glamorous spots in Turkey called, rather dubiously, "the next St Tropez". The luxury hotels and private villas built on steep hillsides have become a magnet for the jet-setting super-rich.

I expected this Turkish Riviera to have been squandered by rapacious tourism but instead find only seduction. Sleepy neighbours Bozburun and Datca are only accessible from the sea while at Macakizi, and further along the Turkbuku foreshore, you can still eat fish at a table with your feet in the water.

Home-cooking is a way of life in Turkey. The wisdom of good hospitality was encapsulated by Ayla Emiroglu, a kind of celebrity in her own right, who opened the first incarnation of Macakizi in Bodrum town centre in the mid-1970s. Her small, bohemian, beachside B&B became the stuff of legend. An influential music magnate, Ahmet Ertegun, had a house in Bodrum and, being friends with Emiroglu, brought Mick Jagger and Aretha Franklin to stay. Then came Rudolf Nureyev and Bette Midler. People only seen in magazines were regulars. Word spread.

The enchantments of childhood years left their mark on Ayla's son, Sahir, the charismatic impresario with the Cohiba cigar between his lips who runs Macakizi today. The Medbodrum Festival was his idea and, as hoped, an enduring party spirit prevails for the blessed and the beautiful who mingle with music, food, literature, politics, business and the arts.

The stage is thrumming with a vibrant, all-ages crowd when Bob Marley's grandson, Skip, arrives with entourage and coasts onto stage in a swirling mass of dreadlocks. Kate Moss is there somewhere.

Hedonism can be exhausting. When it's time to turn in, I ascend the stone terraces to a white-washed villa, snug in a grove of oleander. Cats are wauling in the moonlight, a mysterious primordial sound that shifts to something else in the silvery sunrise: the undulating call to prayer drifting from a mosque across the bay.

In the breakfast area, light dapples through the glass roof onto earthy-toned Aztec-patterned rugs, and unpolished wooden tables. There's an assortment of mouthwatering delectables in glazed terracotta bowls. Feta and kaymak (soft cream cheese) and honey oozing from the comb, heavenly soft roasted eggplant, pomegranate and beetroot freshened with mint leaves.

Lunch will last all day3, if I let it, so I'm leaving this temple of impeccable cuisine and heading to Bodrum old town. Known in ancient times as Halicarnassus, the centre lies about an hour's drive along a winding road that unfolds through villages fringed with gnarled olive trees.

One of the great architectural masterpieces of Halicarnassus dates back to the 4th century BCE. The amphitheatre sits unceremoniously close to the bitumen road, but this commanding gladiatorial monument of stone tiers with sweeping coastal views to the Greek island of Kos is still, miraculously, in use.

It is not the only resilient relic. A discrete entrance down a narrow street leads to one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The ruined colonnaded Tomb of Mausolus - created in the reign of King Mausolus (350 BCE) - must have been an extraordinary vision adorned with extravagant marble reliefs visible from the sea and rising to an astounding height of 45 metres. The building was destroyed by successive earthquakes but there is still power to enthral in these scattered foundations: the word mausoleum derives from this ancient ruler.

Further on, at the rim of the gleaming superyacht marina, whitewashed buildings split a labyrinth of alleyways embellished by shaded courtyards. Shops spill souvenirs out onto the streets. There's a happy hubbub in the cafes serving bowls of traditional menemen (eggs, tomatoes, green peppers and spices) and cilbir (poached eggs with yoghurt).

Above all rises the UNESCO World Heritage-listed landmark St Peter's Castle, a fine example of late Crusader 15th-century architecture built for the Knights of St John. Behind these walls, where screeching emerald peacocks strut over crumbling sculptures, the real discovery is the Museum of Underwater Archaeology.

Wealth is not only measured in gold. I stand alone, suspended in the infinite silence of antiquity, surrounded by artefacts unearthed during underwater excavations of shipwrecks dating back to the Old Bronze Age and Hellenistic periods.

In the warp and weft of civilisations - Hittites, Trojans, Carians, Persians, Greeks, Romans and Byzantines - these glass cases contain the imprints of apostles and saints and conquerors, Alexander The Great, Antony and Cleopatra.

Then I remember Zafer Kizilkaya telling me that one of the most explosive volcanic eruptions ever witnessed by humans took place nearly 4000 years ago, around 1600 BCE, off the island of Santorini in the eastern Mediterranean. It buried an early bronze age harbour which archaeologists found recently, near Bozburun, only six metres below the water line.

"Every single piece of 4000-year-old pottery was shattered by that earthquake," Kizilkaya said.

Except for that one revealed, just to me, reclined on a lounge at the edge of the glittering Aegean Sea.

Getting there: Turkish Airlines flies from Melbourne and Sydney to Istanbul and on to Bodrum, about an hour by air from Istanbul. From London, British Airways flies direct to Bodrum several times a week.

Staying there: Macakizi is a blissful seaside hotel with 74 simply elegant rooms hidden in greenery with sea views from every vantage point. It has a small but marvellous spa, a beach-rocking bar, and an excellent restaurant which, in 2023, received a Michelin star, one of the first in Turkey to attract the accolade. Rates start from 350 euros per night, including breakfast and two-way airport transfer. The resort closes over winter from November to April 1, with the 2025 MedBodrum International Festival of Art on from May 8 to 12. macakizi.com/#home

PLACES TO EAT

Ayla is Macakizi's recently launched fine-dining restaurant but if you choose to wander from this intimate and atmospheric spot, you'll find a pearly string of traditional foodie favourites on the Turkbuku waterfront.

1. At Orkide Balak, with your toes in the water, fresh fish comes from sea to table with no-fuss generosity. Sometimes the best things in life are as simple as marinated squid or deep-fried sea bass with aubergine and a bechamel sauce spiked with mustard. orkideotel.com/orkide-balik/

2. Garo's has been dishing up deliciousness for more than a decade in a white stone house at the water's edge. www.garosturkbuku.com

3. Past Bodrum old town, go for Ayana Mes at the beachside, an insider's favourite in Ortakent, one of the oldest continuously settled spots on the Peninsula. Tables placed on the sand are snapped up by locals who come for meze, grilled octopus, and other authentic Bodrum classics. ayanabodrum.com

1. Zai Bodrum is an unmissable gallery, library, theatre, garden and restaurant in a thousand-year-old olive grove on the outskirts of Bodrum town. The library is a place of peace where you can buy the books or read and leave them. The sculpture garden is a delight. zaiyasam.com

2. Bodrum's long-abandoned windmills stand as silent witnesses on a hill overlooking the old town. These whitewashed sentinels against a backdrop of blue coast are worth the hike for view alone. Afterwards, you could drop into Isola Manzara Gardens for a cocktail or a canape with a gorgeous castle view. isolarestaurant.com/bodrum

3. Kilometres of jagged coastline tempt with impossibly pretty coves and there are plenty of beach clubs decked with ladders leading straight into the water. Buddha-Bar Beach in Asarlik Mevkii and Folie in Haremtan Cove are worth considering. buddhabarbeachbodrum.com; folierestaurantandsea.com

The writer was a guest of Macakizi.