several small strips of sand and pebble beach too, the most popular being Yörük Ali Plajı near Dilburnu. Most development on the island is on its northern side with the south still largely wooded. History Byzantine era 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. The Byzantine Emperor Justin II was the first of the rulers who is known to have built a convent (as well as a palace) on Prinkipo in C.E. 569. This was expanded by Empress Eirene and soon began to serve as a place of exile for the Byzantine empresses Irene, Euphrosyne, Theophano, Zoe and Anna Dalassena. Later history Prinkipo was one of the last places that the Ottomans managed to seize from the Byzantine. 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. Most of its Greek residents left in the population exchange of 1923 or after the pogrom of 1955 and the expulsion order of 1966. Many of the Armenians were driven out in 1924. Just a few Jews still live on the island. At one time iron mining took place on the island in the area now called Maden (Mine). International tourism to the Princes' Islands was relatively slow to take off but by 2015 was becoming the dominant economic factor. Transport on the island Until 2020 the only transportation on Büyükada (as on the other inhabited Princes' islands) had been horse-drawn phaetons (fayton). However, the explosion of tourism on the island had made this increasingly unsustainable and, under pressure from animal-rights activists, the decision was made to replace the horses with electric vehicles, bringing to an end a tradition that had made the islands unique in Turkey. Places of interest By far the most important attraction for tourists on Büyükada is the Greek Orthodox monastery of Hagios Georgios Koudonas (St George of the Bells) on Yüceptepe, which was probably founded in the 10th century although what remains on the site now dates from the mid-18th to 19th centuries. 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