A couple of weekends ago, on a Sunday afternoon, we took a picnic and headed past Mudanya (the ferry location) to a once Greek village called Tirilye. Although it is now called, by signs anyway, Zeytinbagi, the local Turks still call it by it's Greek name. We had dinner on Friday evening with the owners of May Seed at a private fish restaurant at their summer home resort in Mudanya and could see the lights of this little village. We were told the story, it peaked our interest, and off we went. "Zeytin" is Turkish for "olive", and Zeytinbagi (pronounced ze-teen-bah-ee) means "olive orchard or grove", It is aptly named, as there are acres and acres of olive groves up and down the hills, as high as you can see and right down to the sea. Before the Ottomans, Tirilye was a residential area for Greeks and after the Ottoman rule, the christian community continued to be in the majority. After the War for Independence in 1923, there was a population exchange between Turkey and Greece, where the Greeks migrated to Greece and the Turkish and Muslin immigrants settled in Tirilye. They say that every year many Greeks return to this village to visit their past home, or new generations to see where their family had lived. Tirilye/Zeytinbagi is now a lovely seaside village, famous for its local olives and olive oils, and is a quiet holiday village with a beautiful marina and seafood restaurants. It was interesting to see the blending of the agriculture with the olives and the fishing with the sea. You see a boat at one corner and a tractor parked on the street at the next. Seems as if you are entering another world at times.
View from the eastern side of Mudanya, looking back. Heat haze from humidity is a permanent fixture these days.
If you enlarge this photo, you can see the "resort area" at the forefront, tennis courts, pool, playground, etc. You can see tables near the playground, right on the bluff above the water. That is where we ate our dinner on the Friday evening, watching the sunset. Magical.
View of the rugged coast of the Marmara Sea. There are many coves, but few true swimming areas on the Marmara.
View to Tirilye/Zeytinbagi, the marina, village and olive orchards.
Main Street into the village.
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