Turkey Black Sea Mountain Road from Trabzon

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Trabzon

   Trabzon looks north to the Black Sea and turns its back on the rest of Turkey, and the mountains behind it help. The Pontic Alps rise steeply from the coast, with cloud forests, tea gardens and hazelnut orchards, and the city climbs the slope in layers of apartment blocks and old houses. It was the capital of the Empire of Trebizond, a Greek Byzantine splinter state that formed in 1204 after the Fourth Crusade and survived until the Ottomans took it in 1461, outlasting Constantinople by eight years. The church of Hagia Sophia, a thirteenth-century building on a terrace above the sea with frescoes still visible inside, is the best reminder of that time.

   Read the complete Trabzon write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Trabzon is where the day begins. Next is Sultan Murat Plateau.

2. 2. Sultan Murat Plateau

   The Sultan Murat plateau is a yayla, one of the high summer pastures of the eastern Black Sea mountains, and the word is worth knowing because it explains the whole landscape. For centuries, families from the coastal villages have driven their cattle up to meadows like this one each summer, living in wooden huts while the grass grows, making butter and cheese, and returning to the lowlands in the autumn. The yayla at about 2,200 metres is wide, green and treeless, with a bowl of peaks around it and clouds sliding across the grass.

   Read the complete Sultan Murat Plateau write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Sultan Murat Plateau comes up about 68 km into the recorded legs. Nothing on this route is higher. Next is Uzungol, mostly downhill.

3. 3. Uzungol

   Uzungöl means long lake, and the lake in question was formed when a landslide blocked a river valley and the water backed up behind the barrier. It lies in a steep, forested valley in the Çaykara district, with spruce-covered slopes rising on every side and a mosque with a slender minaret sitting on the shore. On a still morning the mountains reflect in the water, and mist drifts across the surface, which is why the lake has become one of the best-known places on the Turkish Black Sea.

   Read the complete Uzungöl write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 124 km into the recorded legs you reach Uzungol. Next is Rize.

4. 4. Rize

   There is hardly a hillside around Rize that is not covered in tea. The bushes grow in neat green terraces up to hundreds of metres above the coast, steep enough that pickers use ropes and the road clings to the slope in hairpins. Rize is the tea capital of Turkey, and this is also the wettest part of the country, with cloud and drizzle most of the year, which is exactly why the plants thrive. The town has a pleasant hill park above the centre where you can drink tea at a table with a view of the sea, and a small castle on the ridge above the centre gives a view over the roofs and the sea.

   Read the complete Rize write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Rize closes the day.