Aegean Region

World-renowned British top model Naomi Campbell has chosen the Aegean tourism hub Bodrum for summer vacation this year with her two-year-old baby girl.

The 52-year-old Campbell was caught by paparazzi while touring the famous "Cennet Koyu" (Paradise Bay) on a yacht with her friends with whom she rented a secluded villa.

Turkish Coast Guard teams have saved a total of 186 irregular migrants that were pushed back to Turkish waters by Greece in two separate operations conducted in the İzmir and Muğla provinces.

The Gate of Hell, (Plutonium), which was unearthed in 2013 by the Italian excavation team in Pamukkale, one of Türkiye's UNESCO World Cultural Heritage sites, has been opened to visitors. Plutonium, which is called the "gateway to the land of the dead" in ancient sources, began hosting hundreds of local and foreign tourists on the very first day.

Bodrum's marina is facing threat of "becoming like the Marmara Sea," experts are warning, saying boats are dumping bilge water into the sea near the port causing pollution.

Archaeological excavations carried out in the Yeşilova Mound, where the first settlers of the city lived in the Bornova district of İzmir, have unearthed 8,200-year-old stone cutting tools.

A man returned to school after 40 years to graduate from engineering school at the age of 63.

Üzeyir Aydın had to drop out of the civil engineering department at a university in the province of Balıkesir that he enrolled in 1978 due to financial problems.

"It was 1983 when I had to stop studying because my family was going through hard times," Aydın recalled.

Turkey's airports served 57 million passengers in January-May, a strong 94.2 percent increase from a year ago.

The international passenger tally rose by 161 percent on an annual basis in the first five months of the year to 28.4 million people, data from the General Directorate of State Airports Authority (DHMİ) showed on June 6.

A monument has been constructed in the Dalyan neighborhood of the southwestern province of Muğla's Ortaca district in the name of June Haimoff, a British environmentalist, known as the "mother of Caretta carettas," who died on April 23 at the age of 100.

The number of archaeological excavations in the western province of Muğla, which is home to important ruins besides offering sea, sand and sun tourism, increased from 23 last year to 30 this year. While most of the archaeological excavations continue in summer and winter, seabed rescue excavations are also carried out.

More than 300 cyclists from some 12 countries will compete in the "Santini Queens of the Aegean Boostrace" race on May 29 in the southwestern province of Muğla's Marmaris district, a tourism hub in the region.