Escape the Crowds

Tirilye, the stone village

A Greek-built olive town on the coast west of Mudanya — churches turned mosques, a stone school, and the best olives you'll buy from a doorway.

₺half a daya spring or autumn afternoon

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Why do it?

Along the coast from Mudanya, Tirilye is a small town built up two sides of a valley by its Greek population and made rich by olives — it was officially renamed Zeytinbağı, 'olive orchard', from 1963 until it got its old name back in 2012. What remains is a tight village of stone houses, three Byzantine churches in various afterlives (one the Fatih mosque, one the arched Kemerli Kilise), a grand stone school building, and lanes that drop to a small harbor. Everyone here sells olives and oil, and everyone's is the best.

The Smileys Take

Come in the shoulder seasons when the light is soft and the lanes are empty, and let the town be small: an hour of wandering, a coffee by the harbor, a plate of fish or a village lunch, and olives to take home. It chains naturally with Mudanya on the way back for the seafront and dinner. A good low-effort Smileys half-day — you can do it with a shared car and no plan at all.