However, by the late 2010s tourism to Büyükada swelled enormously as it became a favourite day-trip destination for visitors from greenery-starved Arab countries in particular.

In 1884 the French historian Gustave Schlumberger published Les Iles des Princes, describing his visit to the archipelago.

Ernest Mamboury recorded the sites of the island in his Les Iles des Princes, published in 1943 and Jak Deleon updated his work in 2003 in his Büyükada: A Guide to the Monuments.

In 2009 the poet and translator Joachim Sartorius published an exquisite short travelogue called The Princes' Islands: Istanbul's Archipelago which mainly focused on Büyükada.

The island has several small strips of sand and pebble beach too, the most popular being Yörük Ali Plajı near Dilburnu.

During the period of Byzantine rule the Princes' Islands became a place where rulers founded churches and monasteries but where they also dumped their enemies to prevent them from plotting to harm them.

It then settled down as a sleepy backwater until 1846 when the first ferry service made it easily accessible from mainland Constantinople/Istanbul whereupon it became an increasingly popular summer retreat for wealthier city residents.

The monastery's name recalls an early 17th-century legend according to which a shepherd boy watching his flocks heard the sound of bells coming from underground, dug down into the earth and uncovered an icon of St George that had been buried to protect it from the Fourth Crusaders in 1204.

[6] Traditionally standard phaeton tours used to bring visitors to the foot of the rocky path leading up to the monastery but these ceased to operate in 2020.

After Sultan Abdülhamid II refused to allow its use as a casino, it was bought by a woman who donated it to the Patriarchate to serve as an orphanage which it did until 1964 except during the First World War when it was used by the Kuleli Military School.

[14] The pretty ferry terminal was designed by Armenian architect Mihran Azaryan in First National Architectural style in 1899 and started service in 1915.

Every year on St George's Day (23 April) visitors flock to the island to take part in a pilgrimage to the monastery of Hagios Georgios Koudanas on Yücetepe.

Since the date coincides with Turkey's Children and National Sovereignty Day public holiday (and sometimes with the Easter tourism period) the crowds attending can be enormous.