TürkiyeCennetThe Black Sea coast and highlands
From a harbour town on the western Black Sea to a monastery clinging to a cliff, and on to a highland pasture at the foot of the Kaçkars. The greenest and wettest line in Türkiye.
- days
- 3
- Stops
- 3
- Approximate distance
- ~740 km
- Best season
- Summer · Early autumn
Stops
- Sümela MonasteryTrabzon
50 km from Trabzon. Parts of the monastery close periodically for restoration.
- Ayder HighlandRize
The gateway to the Kaçkars. Allow a separate day to reach the higher yayla settlements such as Pokut and Sal.
What this route is about
The Black Sea coast does not resemble the rest of Türkiye. The mountains run parallel to the sea and trap the moisture against it, producing a strip that receives rain in every month of the year and stays green throughout. These three stops cross that strip from west to east, climbing as they go.
Amasra has been a harbour since Roman times; today it is a small town of stone streets squeezed between two bays. Sümela is a Greek Orthodox monastery founded in the 4th century, carved into a cliff 300 m above the Altındere valley, with some of its frescoes still in place. Ayder is a yayla — a highland pasture — at the foot of the Kaçkar Mountains. Above it the roads become tracks, and cloud can descend at any hour.
Splitting it into days
Amasra and Ayder are about 800 km apart, which makes driving the whole line in one go punishing. The practical answer is to split it: treat Amasra as a weekend from Istanbul or Ankara, and fly into Trabzon for Sümela and Ayder.
- Day 1 — Amasra. The castle, the two bays, the market streets.
- Day 2 — Trabzon and Sümela. The monastery takes half a day.
- Day 3 — Ayder and the Fırtına Valley. A 4x4 or a local minibus for the higher pastures.
When to go
July to September. That is the season for the highlands — before it there is snow, after it fog and cold. June is when the green is most intense. In autumn the Fırtına Valley turns colour and the crowds thin.
Whatever the season, bring waterproofs. This is the wettest region in the country and the forecast is often wrong.
Practical notes
You can drive part of the way up to Sümela and walk the rest; visits are timed and capped, so check in advance. The yayla roads above Ayder are unsurfaced and narrow — an ordinary car will not get up all of them. There is little to no mobile coverage in the Kaçkars: download offline maps, and in an emergency the number is 112.