Aegean
A Greek stone town built on olive oil
Ayvalık is a working olive-oil town built almost entirely by a Greek Orthodox community that was resettled away in 1923 - the stone houses, the church-turned-mosques and the harbour chimneys are all theirs, inherited rather than restored for show. Base yourself in the old town, walk the causeway to Cunda for its own layered history, and save an evening for Şeytan Sofrası's sunset over the islands.
Every published place in one city guide
Start with the essentials, add what genuinely interests you, and leave the rest for another visit. Every place includes a concise story, practical timing, a Maps link, and a one-tap route planner action.
Make the route work
Balıkesir Koca Seyit Airport (EDO — not to be confused with Balıkesir Merkez, code BZI, a separate airport) is roughly 40km from Ayvalık, about 4km from Edremit. Shuttle buses time themselves to flight arrivals for the run into the district; taxis and car rental also cover the route. There is no rail link — most domestic connections are by air via EDO or overland by intercity coach from İzmir or Istanbul.
The old town and harbour are walkable from most central hotels. Cunda Island sits across a causeway a short dolmuş or taxi ride north — minibuses run the route constantly in season. Şeytan Sofrası and Sarımsaklı Beach both need a dolmuş, taxi or rental car; neither is a walk from the centre.
Turkish lira is standard; cards are widely accepted in the old town and on Cunda, less reliably at small market stalls, where cash is worth carrying.
Mobile coverage is reliable throughout the old town, Cunda and the main beaches. It can thin out on the boat trips through the outer islands.
Several of the town's historic Greek Orthodox churches now function as mosques — treat them as the active places of worship they are, with modest dress and quiet inside. The old town's residential lanes are lived-in, not a stage set; keep that in mind with cameras.
A relaxed, low-crime coastal town. The real hazards are heat on the Şeytan Sofrası hilltop, which has little shade, and uneven cobblestones underfoot in the old town after rain. Check your government's current travel advisory for Türkiye before booking, as with any trip.
Essential
If you only have one day, this is the day.
Cross a 1960s causeway to an island wholly Greek until 1923, resettled by Cretan and Lesbos Turks - windmills and waterfront tavernas.
Cunda (Alibey Adası), 26.8km2 and now home to about 3,300 people, was entirely Greek Orthodox before the 1923 population exchange, then resettled by Muslim Turks expelled from Crete and Lesbos. The causeway linking it to the mainland, built in the late 1960s, is often cited as Turkey's first bridge of its kind.
Free to visit; the causeway crossing has no toll. Restaurant prices at the waterfront run a little above central Ayvalık.
Walk streets built by a Greek Orthodox community forced out in 1923 - the stone houses and converted churches still stand untouched.
Ottoman-era Ayvalık (then Kydonies/Aivalık) was an overwhelmingly Greek Orthodox town of some 34,000 people by 1914, its wealth built on olive oil. The 1923 population exchange under the Treaty of Lausanne resettled nearly all of them to Greece within a few years, and Muslim Turks from Lesbos, Crete and Thessaloniki took their place in the same streets and houses.
Free to walk; no ticket for the old town itself.
Worth your time
A second day earns you these.
Ayvalık's real sandy beach — a long, resort-lined strand about 8km south, the counterpoint to the old town's cobblestones.
Located in Küçükköy, roughly 8km from central Ayvalık, Sarımsaklı is the main sandy beach on a stretch of coast that's otherwise mostly rocky — its long, gently sloping strand made it the natural site for the district's beach-resort development, distinct in character from the historic core.
Free public beach; sunbed and umbrella hire from beachfront cafés, paid in lira.
A Greek cathedral turned mosque turned ruin turned museum — Cunda's clearest record of what 1923 did to a single building.
Built in 1873 as the Metropolitan Church of the Archangels for Cunda's Greek Orthodox community, it was converted to a mosque without a minaret after the 1923 population exchange, its iconostasis dismantled and frescoes painted over. A 1944 earthquake left it badly damaged, standing abandoned for decades before restoration and its May 2014 reopening as a museum under the Rahmi M. Koç Museum and Culture Foundation.
Ticketed; confirm current admission locally — museum pricing across the Rahmi M. Koç network changes periodically.
Climb a bare volcanic hilltop above Ayvalık Bay for the sunset the whole town quietly organises its evening around.
Locally called Çanak Tepe before its current name took hold, this flat-topped hill on the rim of an old lava cone carries a local legend that a three-legged devil, driven from the town, left his footprint in a shallow depression in the rock here - visitors still toss coins into it and make a wish.
Free; small paid parking area at the summit in season.
If you have longer
Keep these compact stops in mind when you build your trip.
The scattered islands facing Lesbos - historically called Hekatonnesoi, the 'Islands of Apollo', or Moschonisia in Greek - are today a protected Nature Park, popular for day-boat tours out of Ayvalık's harbour.
No entry fee; day-boat tours from Ayvalık harbour are priced per boat, typically including lunch — compare a few operators before booking.
Getting there and away
Door-to-door times and fare ranges, checked leg by leg. Only routes where every leg verified are listed.
Getting aroundTürkiye, for scale
See this city in the wider shape of Türkiye.