Underneath the balcony

Before the population exchange of the 1920's, Ayvalik was the second most important Ottoman Greek town on the Aegean coast of Anatolia, after Smyrna (now Izmir). The town derived most of its wealth from the olive oil industry; Ayvalik lies at the centre of Turkey's olive growing area, and its olive oil is of exceptionally high quality.

Ayvalik was thus a very prosperous town, and some of the merchants' houses are big enough, and grand enough, to be called mansions. The larger houses in Ayvalik often have a baclony on the front - today I was walking past this one, and noticed that the underside of the balcony was decroated with a rosette carved in stone.