Qualla: Ayvalık https://qualla.com/ayval-k en-us © 2026 Bendyline Thu, 23 Jul 2026 20:34:08 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/f/z/ayval-k-wk/hero-small.webp Qualla: Ayvalık https://qualla.com/ayval-k Ayvalık: Introduction https://qualla.com/ayval-k/ Photo credit User:Darwinek, CC BY-SA 3.0. A local saying sums up the whole town in three words: Rakı, Balık, Ayvalık. Aniseed liquor, fish, and the place itself. Set on the south shore of the Gulf of Edremit, this Turkish port of some 75,000 people looks across a narrow strait at the Greek island of Lesvos, close enough to reach by a ninety-minute ferry. Cobbled alleys wind between elegant stone mansions, perfumed with frying fish, and the churches on the skyline have minarets. Nearly everything you notice here is a clue to a history of two peoples who traded places.

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Image: User:Darwinek | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/f/z/ayval-k-wk/swfz-ayval-k-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Ayvalık: The Town That Was Greek https://qualla.com/ayval-k/ Photo credit Bernard Gagnon, CC BY-SA 3.0. Ayvalık's older name was Kydonies, from the Greek word for quince, though it is olives, not quince, that have defined it for centuries. The surrounding groves still supply a huge share of Turkey's olive oil. Under Ottoman rule from the fourteenth century, Kydonies enjoyed unusual...

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Image: Bernard Gagnon | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/f/z/ayval-k-wk/swfz-ayval-k-the-town-that-was-greek.mp3 0:06 2 full Ayvalık: A New People in Old Houses https://qualla.com/ayval-k/ Photo credit Klossa, Public domain. The 1923 Treaty of Lausanne brought a hard, lasting peace and a sweeping population exchange. Greeks were deported from mainland Turkey; Muslims were deported from Greek territory. Into the emptied town of Kydonies, renamed Ayvalık, came Turks from Crete. It was, by the cruel ari...

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Image: Klossa | Public domain

]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/f/z/ayval-k-wk/swfz-ayval-k-a-new-people-in-old-houses.mp3 0:06 3 full Ayvalık: Churches With Minarets https://qualla.com/ayval-k/ Photo credit Antoloji, CC BY-SA 4.0. Walk Ayvalık's center and the layered past is literally overhead. The Saatli Camii, the Clock Mosque, was a Greek Orthodox church built in 1850; in 1928 a minaret went up and the interior was barely touched. Nearby Çınarlı Mosque is another neoclassical Greek church turned mosque...

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Image: Antoloji | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/f/z/ayval-k-wk/swfz-ayval-k-churches-with-minarets.mp3 0:06 4 full Ayvalık: A Writer's Death March https://qualla.com/ayval-k/ Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. Among the elegant mansions stands a neglected house at 13 Nisan Caddesi, number 112, where the novelist Elias Venezis was born in 1904. His story is the town's tragedy made personal. When the area changed hands in 1922, Venezis was conscripted into a 3,000-man labor battalion and...

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]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/f/z/ayval-k-wk/swfz-ayval-k-a-writers-death-march.mp3 0:06 5 full Ayvalık: Olives, Fish, and a Devil's Table https://qualla.com/ayval-k/ Photo credit Ersin Soken, CC BY-SA 4.0. Modern Ayvalık wears its heritage lightly and eats extremely well. The waterfront meyhanes line tables down narrow alleys, serving seafood with rakı, and a local toasted sandwich, the Ayvalık tostu, has its own modest fame. Squash blossoms get stuffed where grape leaves usually w...

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Image: Ersin Soken | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/f/z/ayval-k-wk/swfz-ayval-k-olives-fish-and-a-devils-table.mp3 0:06 6 full