Eastern Black Sea · Turkey
Turkey's green, wet, mountainous north — tea terraces, cloud-filled valleys and a monastery glued to a cliff.
Photo: Bjørn Christian Tørrissen · CC BY-SA 3.0
Everything most people picture when they think of Turkey — dry light, olive trees, ruins baking in the sun — is absent here. The eastern Black Sea is the wettest part of the country, with rain in every month and over two metres of it a year in places. The result is a coast of near-vertical green: tea terraces climbing from the sea, hazelnut groves, beech and spruce forest, and valleys that fill with cloud by mid-morning. It looks far more like the Alps or the Caucasus than like the Aegean, because geographically it is much closer to both.
Trabzon is the region's city and was, for two and a half centuries, a capital. After the Fourth Crusade sacked Constantinople in 1204, a branch of the Komnenos dynasty set up the Empire of Trebizond here — a Black Sea state that outlasted Byzantium itself, falling to Mehmed II only in 1461. What survives is a thirteenth-century Hagia Sophia with its frescoes, a walled old quarter above a ravine, and a position on the old caravan route from Persia to the sea.
The reason most people come, though, is an hour inland and 1,200 metres up. Sumela Monastery is built into a sheer cliff above the Altındere valley, a Greek Orthodox foundation traditionally dated to 386 and abandoned in 1923 when its community left in the population exchange. Beyond it the land climbs again to the Kaçkar mountains, where the highest peak reaches 3,937 metres and the summer pastures — the yayla — sit above the cloud line with wooden houses on stilts.
Why visit
This is the part of Turkey that surprises people who thought they knew the country. It is green, cool, mountainous, and culturally distinct.
A monastery built into a cliff face 300 metres above a forested valley, with rock-cut chapels and frescoes painted on the bare stone inside and out. There is nothing else like it in Turkey.
Highland pastures at 1,800–2,200 metres where families still bring animals up for the summer, reached by rough roads and often sitting above a sea of cloud with the Kaçkars behind. Pokut, Sal and Hıdırnebi are the classics.
In July and August, when Şanlıurfa passes 42°C and the Aegean ruins become unwise, the Black Sea coast sits at 25°C, green and damp. It is the country's summer escape.
Cornmeal rather than wheat, butter and stringy cheese, collard greens, and anchovies used in fifty ways including a rice pilaf and a dessert. Nothing here tastes like the food on the coast or the plateau.
The Kaçkar range rises to 3,937 metres within 30 km of the sea, with glacial lakes, waymarked routes between yayla, and a trekking season from July to September.
Main attractions
Trabzon itself takes half a day. Everything else is spread along 200 km of coast and up the valleys behind it, and a car makes all the difference.
Founded by tradition in 386 and rebuilt many times, built into a cliff at about 1,200 m in the Altındere valley 45 km south of Trabzon. The rock church carries frescoes on its interior and exterior faces; the monks left in 1923.
Tip It closed for several years for rockfall stabilisation and has reopened in stages — check which sections are accessible before you set out.
A thirteenth-century church of the Trebizond empire on a bluff west of the centre, with an unusually complete fresco cycle and a carved frieze of Adam and Eve on the south porch. It functions as a mosque today.
Tip Some frescoes are screened during prayer. Visit outside prayer times, dress modestly and remove shoes.
A plateau village at 1,300 m in Rize province with hot springs, wooden houses and paths climbing into the Kaçkar range behind it. The base for trekking to glacial lakes and up towards the 3,937 m summit.
Tip Ayder itself has been heavily overbuilt. Treat it as a trailhead and sleep higher up at Pokut or Sal if you can.
A long forested gorge inland from Ardeşen crossed by Ottoman humpback stone bridges, with the medieval Zil Kale standing on a spur above the river halfway up.
Tip The road narrows and roughens the further you go. Take it slowly and stop at the bridges — several are still in use.
Summer pastures at 1,800–2,200 m — Pokut, Sal, Hıdırnebi, Gito — with stilted wooden houses, grazing animals and, very often, cloud lying in the valleys below you at dawn.
Tip The last few kilometres are unsurfaced. Guesthouses are simple, cold at night even in August, and worth every minute.
Almost all of Turkey's tea is grown on these slopes, in terraces that run from the shoreline to 900 m. Rize has hillside tea gardens with views over the plantations and the sea.
Tip The Ziraat tea garden above Rize is the classic stop. Harvest runs in three flushes from May to autumn.
A lake at about 1,100 m in a steep wooded valley 100 km south-east of Trabzon, with a mosque at the water's edge — the most photographed spot in the region and now heavily developed around it.
Tip Go early in the day or out of season. In July and August it is extremely busy and the valley road can gridlock.
The hill above Trabzon, with the whole city, harbour and coastline laid out below, and a white late-Ottoman villa in gardens partway up that Atatürk used on his visits.
Tip Late afternoon for the light. A short taxi ride from the centre and there are tea gardens at the top.
Things to do
This is a driving-and-walking region. The best days involve getting up a valley and staying the night at the top of it.
The approach through the Altındere national park, the climb up to the monastery, and the frescoes painted directly onto the cliff. Allow half a day including the drive from Trabzon.
Tip Mornings are clearer; by afternoon cloud often fills the valley and hides the whole thing.
Drive up to Pokut or Sal in the late afternoon, eat muhlama in a wooden house, and wake above a valley full of cloud. It is the single best experience in the region and nothing on the coast matches it.
Tip Book ahead in summer — there are only a handful of rooms — and take a fleece whatever the coastal forecast says.
From Ardeşen up the gorge past Ottoman stone bridges to Zil Kale and beyond towards Çat, with the river below and the forest closing over the road.
Tip A full day with stops. The road deteriorates progressively; a normal car reaches Zil Kale comfortably.
Day walks from Ayder to waterfalls and pastures, or multi-day routes between yayla and up towards the glacial lakes, with the summit at 3,937 m for those equipped for it.
Tip July to September only. Weather changes fast and fog is the real hazard — take a map, not just a phone.
Sit in a hillside tea garden above Rize with terraces running down to the sea, and drink the çay that supplies the whole country from the province you are looking at.
Tip Turkish tea is served in tulip glasses and comes strong; ask for 'açık' if you want it weaker.
Between November and February the anchovy is everywhere — fried in cornmeal, baked into rice, made into meatballs, and argued about endlessly. It defines the regional identity as much as the tea does.
Tip Out of season it will be frozen. If you are here in summer, eat muhlama and Akçaabat köfte instead.
Local food
Wheat does not thrive in this rain, so the Black Sea cooks with maize, butter, cheese, greens and fish — a kitchen with no equivalent elsewhere in Turkey.
The Black Sea anchovy, in season from November to February, fried in cornmeal (hamsi tava), layered into rice (hamsili pilav), pressed into meatballs, and even baked into bread. A regional obsession.
Where to try it Any coastal restaurant in winter. In summer, assume it is frozen and order something else.
Also called kuymak: cornmeal cooked slowly into melted butter and young stringy cheese until it pulls into threads. Eaten from the pan with bread, usually at breakfast, and utterly rich.
Where to try it Yayla guesthouses and highland breakfast places. The higher up you eat it, the better it tends to be.
Black cabbage — a collard that grows through the wet winters — made into soup with beans and cornmeal, or wrapped around rice as sarma, and eaten with dense yellow mısır ekmeği.
Where to try it Village restaurants inland. It is home cooking rather than restaurant cooking, so simpler places do it best.
Meatballs from the Akçaabat district west of Trabzon: coarsely minced beef with garlic and bread, grilled over charcoal and served with onion, peppers and a mound of parsley.
Where to try it Akçaabat itself, twenty minutes along the coast, where the specialists are — and in Trabzon's grill houses.
Layers of very thin pastry with a set custard between them, baked and dusted with sugar. A dessert unique to this coast and much lighter than the syrup-soaked pastries of the south.
Where to try it Pastry shops in Trabzon, Rize and Ardeşen. It sells out by the afternoon.
Turkish tea is grown almost entirely on these slopes, picked in three flushes from May, brewed in a double pot and served black in tulip glasses with sugar cubes on the saucer.
Where to try it Tea gardens above Rize looking down over the terraces, and every single café in the region.
Accommodation
The choice is coast or altitude. Trabzon has the hotels; the mountains have the reason you came.
Transport
Trabzon is a long way from anywhere else in Turkey by road, so almost everyone flies in.
This is the one part of Turkey where a hire car is close to essential — the good places are up valleys that buses do not climb.
When to go
The mountains dictate the season: the yayla roads are open and the trekking is possible only in summer, which is also when the rest of Turkey is too hot and everyone comes here instead.
Intensely green and full of rhododendron, with waterfalls at their strongest. The high yayla are still under snow and some roads remain closed. Wet, but the coast and Sumela are fine.
The only reliable window for the plateaus and the Kaçkars, at a comfortable 22–27°C on the coast and cool at altitude. Also the busiest — Uzungöl and Ayder fill with domestic and Gulf visitors.
The pick of the year: the crowds go home, the forests turn, the trekking is still open through September, and the light between rain showers is exceptional.
Mild and very wet on the coast at 7–12°C, deep snow in the mountains, and most yayla guesthouses shut. This is hamsi season, which is a genuine reason to come.
Worth planning around: Do not plan a Black Sea trip around clear skies. This is the wettest region in Turkey, with rain possible on any day of the year — pack for it and treat the cloud in the valleys as the scenery rather than the problem.
Itinerary
Trabzon and Sumela first, then east into the mountains, with two nights at altitude. Assumes a hire car from day two.
The city and the last Byzantine capital.
The monastery in the cliff.
Tea country and the river gorge.
The best day of the trip.
Down the valley and along the coast.
Travel tips
Black Sea travel runs on weather and altitude, and both catch people out.
FAQ
Trabzon the city is worth half a day — a thirteenth-century Hagia Sophia with fine frescoes, a bazaar and the hill above the harbour. The region behind it is what justifies the flight: Sumela Monastery in its cliff, the tea terraces of Rize, the Fırtına valley and the highland pastures below the Kaçkar mountains. Treat the city as a base, not a destination.
It is 45 km south of Trabzon in the Altındere valley, about an hour by road. Private cars are kept out of the upper valley, so you park at the national park entrance and take a shuttle to the foot of the path, then climb. Tours from Trabzon include the transfer. The monastery closed for several years for rockfall stabilisation and has reopened in stages, so check which sections are accessible before travelling.
A summer highland pasture, typically between 1,800 and 2,200 metres, where families historically moved their animals for the warm months and built wooden houses on stone or stilted bases. Several — Pokut, Sal, Hıdırnebi, Gito — now have simple guesthouses. Staying on one, above the cloud that fills the valleys at dawn, is the best thing this region offers.
Effectively yes. Dolmuş minibuses cover the coast road and reach Ayder and Uzungöl, but nothing goes to the smaller yayla, up the Fırtına valley to Zil Kale, or to the plateau guesthouses. Day tours from Trabzon cover Sumela and Uzungöl if you would rather not drive, but you will see a fraction of the region.
June to September for the mountains — that is when the yayla roads are open and the Kaçkar trekking is possible. September is the sweet spot, with the crowds gone and the walking still open. Spring is intensely green but the high roads may still be snowed in. Winter is mild and wet on the coast at 7–12°C, snowbound above, and the season for hamsi.
Yes. This is the wettest part of Turkey, with over two metres of rain a year in places and precipitation possible in every month. That rain is why the region looks the way it does — tea, hazelnuts, forest and cloud-filled valleys. Pack waterproofs, plan indoor alternatives, and treat the mist as part of the landscape rather than a spoiled day.
Very easily. The border crossing at Sarp is about three hours east of Trabzon along the coast, with Batumi a short distance beyond it, and buses run through to Batumi and Tbilisi. Given how far the eastern Black Sea is from the rest of Turkey, adding Georgia often makes more sense than doubling back west. Check visa requirements for your nationality first.
Keep exploring
Places that pair well with Trabzon, whether you have a few spare days or are building a longer route.
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Don't miss A hundred hot-air balloons rising out of the valleys at dawn — and being in one of them.
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A pilgrimage city of sacred carp pools and covered bazaars, twenty minutes from the site that pushed the start of monumental building back by six thousand years.
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Don't miss The Tre Cime di Lavaredo — three vertical rock towers with a ten-kilometre loop path around their base.
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