TRABZON TRAVEL GUIDE

Sea, fish, colorful boats, nets and spectacular sunsets, each one the pith of everyday life in Faroz. And Yaroz Beach, where the lush green coast meets the Black Sea’s blue waters, is popular even on a sunny fall day. Detail of a door on Memişağa Mansion, four kilometers from Sürmene. This unique house on the shore is admired for its incomparable wood workmanship and stenciling.

Aiming for quality over quantity in tourism, Trabzon is showing signs of a major transformation, laying the foundation for sustainable tourism in an approach respectful of nature, history and essential values. There is a feverish hum of activity all over the city. The garden of the Ayasofya Museum has been given a new face and is now hosting violin recitals. The slopes of Trabzon Castle have been transformed into a colossal park. Renewal efforts around the city walls are continuing apace, and the Ortahisar Project is truly exciting. The quarter of Ortahisar, where Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent was born and raised, will be turned into an island of culture through the restoration of some 140 historic houses. Built over two tunnels dating back to the Byzantine period, the quarter boasts authentic examples of Ottoman architecture.

The Trabzon gentlemen promenading in their suits and pocket watches over nearby Zağnospaşa Bridge offer the first clues to the new life here. When long-time city guide Ömer Faruk Öğretmen explains how no one went to the city’s movie theaters without a tie in his childhood, we can’t help but wonder if history is repeating itself in Trabzon. Another key project undertaken to develop regional tourism is the Eastern Black Sea Master Plan. Through this project, tourists coming to the region will be able to travel easily from Samsun all the way to Batumi without ever having to come down to the coast road. Certain highlands along the way are going to be declared touristic centers and accommodation venues opened in a planned approach appropriate to the natural environment. Efforts to encourage at-home bed&breakfasts on the Uzungöl road have already been initiated as part of the project. Converting the Yakupağa Mansion and Alacahan caravanserai into boutique hotels is among the targets, and two five-star hotels are already on the way in line with the city’s tourism vision. A road sign project backed by the Eastern Black Sea Development Agency aims to coordinate the city’s key touristic sites.

Trabzon photographer Atila Alp Bölükbaşı, who says that the road sign project is going to turn the city into a giant tour park, adds that the region’s real beauty spots are hidden in the highlands. With their mountain lakes, wooden houses and numerous festivals held every year between June and September, the flower-rich Trabzon highlands are being transformed into a festival venue. A promotional push has already been launched to inform the world of the riches of Trabzon, which is poised to become Turkey’s center of alternative tourism in the near future. Tourism offices have been opened at the airport, in the city center and at Uzungöl and Maçka. Professionally compiled guidebooks are already being distributed free of charge. Effective promotional campaigns have been conducted at tourism fairs in Dubai, Riyadh, Moscow and Berlin. All these moves have already begun to bear fruit. The radical increase in the number of tourists coming to the city is striking. The number of comers from the Arab countries and Gulf states alone is expected to top sixty thousand by year’s end.

Trabzon has also launched a major drive for cruise ship tourism with at least 23 passenger ships expected to dock here in 2012. Trabzon is also a magnet for faith tourism. The Ottoman legacy of historic mosques and monasteries adds to the city’s attractiveness. The opening of Sumela Monastery for worship 88 years after it was closed down is just one of the factors enhancing the city’s trademark value. One of Turkey’s top four cities in terms of quality of life, Trabzon is at the same time a rising Olympic city. Having successfully hosted four thousand athletes from 49 countries last year in the European Youth Olympic Festival (EYOF), the city is gearing up for another giant sports event in 2014: the ISF World High School Handball Championship. Appropriately, Trabzon, whose name is like the word for banister in Turkish, is a city of terraces. And Boztepe at the top is reached by climbing a multitude of steps chock full of traces of the area’s diverse cultures. The magnificent meeting of the Black Sea’s blue with the dark red of the setting sun leaves a person awestruck by Trabzon. Like so many other beautiful things in this city…

Trabzon is an old city on the Black Sea coast line, at the northeast corner of Türkiye. The population of the city is aproximately 480,000.

Our links about Trabzon travel 

PART 1: Imagined Empire
PART 2: The Main Square
PART 3: A Long Walk
PART 4: Atatürk House
PART 5: Bazaar District
PART 6: Hagia Sophia
PART 7: Boztepe
PART 8: Rising Above
PART 9: Lady of the Mountains
PART 10: Obscure Monasteries
PART 11: The Way to the Pass
PART 12: Gümüşhane

While staying at Trabzon make sure you eat the local food, Akcaabat Köfte (meat ball) special cheese meat ball and Kara Lahana (black caggabe) soup. The Black Sea people love to eat fish, mainly, Hamsi (anchovy), they have more than 30 kinds of dishes made from Hamsi, including bread, baklava (the most famous Turkish dessert), omelette, rice and etc..... Trabzon is also famous for its bread "Trabzon ekmegi", not only at Trabzon, but all over the country.

At the main square of the city, one can find buses to the famous Sumela Monastery at Maçka (50km SE) and the mountain village of Uzungöl, 70km (a lake) - you may feel like you are in an alpine village of Switzerland or Austria. In Uzungöl, there are lots of small hotels and fresh water fish restaurants. The lake is a landslide lake and the best view of the lake is in the afternoon looking west from a mountain on the east.
If you have time, go to Sultan Murat Yayla (a plateu), 30 km SW of the lake where the altitude is 2400m and there are no trees on the plateu due to the high altitude. But you will be mesmerized with view as I was. Sumela Monastery was built in a natural cavity at the edge of the cliff (see in the picture). The mountain is made of volcanic rocks, due to heavy rain in the area, there has been falling rocks onto the stucture and demages it. Some protection measures are being taken to protect it.
When you go to Maçka on the way back make sure you go/pass to the Zigana Tunnel (20km south of Maçka) on the Trabzon-Erzurum road. It is the longest and the highest tunnel in Turkey (2,000m). The road to the tunnel has the best scenery in the whole area, lots of forest and all kind of green colors, when you pass it you will be in a different country site, no trees what so ever!!!. The scenery is much better when you are coming down from the tunnel to Trabzon!! Also on the righthand side of the road 2-km from the tunnel make sure you stop at a small coffee shop and eat sütlac (rice pudding).

If you have time make sure go to East: Rize-Hopa and than to Artvin., to enjoy the scenery and dense forests. In the region, several different local languages are spoken, the most famous ones are; "Laz and Hemşince". Most of the Black Sea people can not pronounce the letter "g", "c" instead. So when they speak Turkish they sound funny!!!The area is famous for its music called "tulum", made of a goat skin, a special instrument, like a back pipe and "kemence" (a small knee type fiddle). "Horon" is their local dance. When the music starts everybody dances, fun to watch these guys/gals, the music has the same tones and never ends so do the dancers!!!

When you are in the area make sure you visit the Kackar Mountain, 90km East of Trabzon. You will follow Firtina River to reach the top (Ayder), the river is small but flows wildly. Kackar is the second highest peak (3,932m) in the country and always covered with snow. In the summer time, you may stay at Ayder Plateu near the Kackar top where you will find lots of small hotels and pansions and make sure that you eat mihlama in morning whereever you stay. It is a special cheese omlet, a local food. Make sure you stay at Ayder for minimum of two days, go to Asagi Kavrun (next to Kackar top, 17km east) and visit Zil Castle (10km south) nearby. There is a hot spring at Ayder where you can enjoy the Turkish Hamam. If you find a rigth tour guide, you may do a hiking tour south of Mountain to Yusufeli, but do not do it by yourself, you must have a tour quide. It is a 12 hour hike and you stay a small town south of the mountain at Barhal !!.I did the same trip back in 1998 and enjoyed it very much.

I did lots of field works as a field geologist for ARCO Internataional Oil and Gas company in 1998 and for Australian and Canadian mining companies between 2004-2005 in the area and wondered around the whole Eastern Black Sea, all the villages/roads and all the cities A-to-Z. The Eastern Black Sea is the most beatifull part, as far as the mountains and forests are concerned in Turkey.

Trabzon ROAD MAP (Click to anlarge) Trabzon Google Map

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