Istanbul + Trabzon: the green Turkey that never appears in the brochures
A Black Sea coast of tea plantations, fog and a monastery hanging off a cliff. It is cool here in summer — which is the main argument.
A different Turkey
The Pontic mountains rise straight from the sea, everything is covered in tea and hazelnut, rain falls all year, and nothing remains of the familiar Mediterranean picture. People come here not to swim — the Black Sea is cool and beside the point — but for the mountains: the high pastures, the fog, the wooden houses on the slopes. In summer, when the country's southern coast is baking, it is twenty degrees here.
What to see
Sumela monastery, carved into a sheer cliff with frescoes visible from outside, is the region's defining image and deserves it. Lake Uzungol in the mountains has grown a ring of hotels around it — beautiful but busy, so come early. The Ayder plateau and the Firtina valley lie further east, already in Rize province: tea-covered slopes, stone bridges, hot springs. Trabzon itself is small: a thirteenth-century Hagia Sophia, the waterfront, the fish market. After its long restoration Sumela is only partly open and the route inside is limited — worth checking before you set out, as access changes from season to season.
How to split it
Three nights in Istanbul and four in Trabzon. Of the four days, one for Sumela, one for Uzungol, one for Ayder with or without an overnight, one for the city and the coast. A car is close to compulsory: the roads are good, the switchbacks endless, and the bus to the plateaus runs on a timetable invented for someone else.
When to go
June–September. This is the one region of Turkey where summer is the best season: everywhere else it is heat, here it is fresh and green. May brings a lot of rain, October brings the fog that hides everything including Sumela. In winter the roads to the plateaus are closed by snow.
About the food
The cooking is different here: hamsi, the Black Sea anchovy, prepared a dozen ways including with rice. Kaygana, muhlama, and above all the local cheese, which stretches and is served melted in a copper pan. Tea is drunk all day, and it is the tea growing around you: Rize supplies the whole country.
What a yayla is
A yayla is a high summer pasture where families move with their livestock; today it is also the main local form of holiday. Up there stand wooden houses, fog arrives and leaves within the hour, and everything else stays below the clouds. The best known are Pokut, Sal, Hidirnebi and Ayder; a short trail with a view runs between Pokut and Sal, and that view is the reason to go. The roads up are narrow and winding — drive in daylight and not in rain.
Language and service here
The Black Sea region is far less touristy than the Mediterranean coast, and it shows: English is rare, menus are often untranslated, and guesthouses are run by families. At the same time the welcome is genuine — tea is poured without counting, and asking for directions usually gets you escorted rather than instructed. A translator app and a willingness to improvise solve everything; timetables here are a suggestion rather than a promise.
Practical matters
No visa. Rain arrives suddenly and hard — a jacket is needed even in July. The road to Sumela is occasionally closed for works or rockfall, so check the day before. And one useful detail: from Trabzon it is easy to reach Rize and go up to the tea plantations, where they show the picking and let you taste different degrees of fermentation.
Moscow → Istanbul → Trabzon
Route and nights go into the form — adjust the date and passengers.