Black Sea Turkey: Trabzon, Uzungöl and Sumela Monastery

Uzungöl is 99 kilometres from Trabzon: according to the provincial culture and tourism directorate, the lake lies in the Çaykara district, 19 kilometres from the district centre. The easiest way there is by car: first east along the coast highway, then up into the mountains on the D915 towards Çaykara. Without a car, the options are a day tour or a minibus. According to Wikivoyage, out-of-town dolmuşes leave from the stand on Çömlekçi Street, about 200 metres south-east of the main square. No operator's page with a timetable to Uzungöl could be found, so ask the driver in the morning, before you set off, when the last minibus back leaves.

Uzungöl: a lake made by a landslide

The name means “long lake”, and the lake is indeed elongated. The Trabzon culture and tourism directorate explains its origin this way: a landslide blocked the bed of the Haldizen stream, and the water backed up behind the debris as behind a natural dam. The slopes around it are covered in spruce forest. The lake lies at about 1,090 metres, according to Wikivoyage. The Ministry of Culture and Tourism's GoTürkiye portal calls Uzungöl a village, a yayla and the province's ecotourism centre all at once: the shore has guest houses, small hotels and trout restaurants.

The road does not end at the lake. The yayla road climbs further, to the Soğanlı pass and into Bayburt province, and near the summits, at about 2,500 metres, lie small mountain lakes that the culture and tourism directorate mentions separately. A yayla here is a high summer pasture with huts; on the coast the word is also used for the mountain villages themselves.

Sumela Monastery: is it open and how a visit works

As of 7 November 2026, the page of Sumela Monastery on the Ministry of Culture and Tourism's Türkiye Müzeleri portal publishes hours and prices and gives no notice of a closure. In June 2026 the monastery was closed for works. On 25 June, Culture and Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy announced that the first stage of maintenance and safety work was complete and visitors were being let in again; the major restoration will continue as planned. The report came from the Anadolu agency. There have been closures before: in September 2015 because of the risk of rockfalls, then several times for works, and in 2021 the closure began on 1 November, as the newspaper Cumhuriyet reported. If you are going in autumn or winter, check the museum page the day before.

In summer, from 15 April to 31 August, the monastery is open daily from 08:00 to 19:00, with the ticket office open until 18:30. From 1 September to 14 October the hours are shorter: 08:00 to 18:00, ticket office until 17:30. The page gives no schedule after 15 October. A ticket for foreign visitors aged 8 and over costs €20; children under 8 enter free. You can buy a ticket in advance from the Ministry's e-ticket office (muze.gov.tr/ETicket).

The monastery stands in Altındere National Park, in the Maçka district south of Trabzon. It was built around a natural cave on a steep slope of Mount Karadağ. According to the legend the Ministry cites, it was founded in the 4th century by the Athenian monks Barnabas and Sophronius; in the 6th century, under Justinian, it was enlarged. The monastery gained particular importance under the Empire of Trebizond, founded in 1204, and its present appearance took shape after repairs and additions in the 18th and 19th centuries. The monks left it during the Greek–Turkish population exchange under the Treaty of Lausanne. According to Wikivoyage, a shuttle minibus runs from the car park to the monastery and is paid for separately from the ticket.

Trabzon: from Hagia Sophia to Boztepe Hill

The city's main monument, Hagia Sophia of Trabzon, stands by the sea, west of the bounds of the medieval town. The church was built in 1238–1263 under the Trapezuntine emperor Manuel I. From 1964 it was a museum, and in 2013 the building became a mosque again. Since 2020, after a suspended ceiling and a glass floor were installed in the prayer hall, the frescoes are visible outside prayer times. So it is best to go inside between prayers.

The heart of the city is Meydan Square with its cafés; dolmuşes and taxis wait at its south end. From the square the pedestrian Kunduracılar Street runs west and after about half a kilometre leads into the market quarter. Near the centre is the Trabzon Museum in the Kostaki Mansion. According to GoTürkiye, the house was built in the early 20th century by the Greek banker Kostaki to a design by Italian architects, and most of the materials were brought from Italy.

GoTürkiye describes the Atatürk Pavilion as an early 20th-century summer house with features of the European Renaissance. Atatürk stayed here on 11 June 1930, and, according to the portal, it was then that he decided to leave all his property to the Turkish nation. Boztepe Hill rises above the city: its eastern part is a wooded park, and from the tea gardens on the slope you can see the city and the sea. Wikivoyage suggests going up at sunset.

If you have half a day to spare, you can go to Sera Lake, west of Trabzon in the town of Yıldızlı. It lies about a kilometre from the shore and appeared on 20 February 1950, when a mountainside slid down and blocked the Sera stream. The lake is 150–200 metres wide. The culture and tourism directorate warns that the earth dam is gradually eroding and the water surface is slowly shrinking.

Rize: where to see the tea plantations

Rize lies 76 kilometres east of Trabzon, according to the Rize culture and tourism directorate. Tea plantations begin right behind the city's neighbourhoods; according to GoTürkiye, tea has been grown here on a large scale since the late 19th century. The simplest place to see them without a car is the Ziraat Botanical Tea Garden (Ziraat Botanik Çay Bahçesi) above the city. It looks out over the sea, the city and Rize Castle; the garden serves tea and light snacks, and it grows both local plants and trees from other regions that have taken to the humid climate.

The castle itself stands on a natural hill 150 metres high, south-west of the centre. GoTürkiye dates the inner castle to the time of Justinian I (527–565); the lower castle was built in the 13th century, and its walls run down to the sea. The terraces of tea gardens on the hills are best seen near the village of Çeçeva (Haremtepe Çeçeva), about 6 kilometres from the centre of the neighbouring Çayeli district.

You will not see pickers on the slopes all year round. Tea is picked in waves, called sürgün in Turkish, meaning “shoot”. In 2026 the state company ÇAYKUR began accepting fresh leaf on 20 May and finished the first picking on 28 June, as its management told the newspaper Dünya. The dates shift with the weather: a cold spring delays the first picking.

Ayder Plateau, the Fırtına Valley and Zilkale

Ayder Plateau is a yayla in the Çamlıhemşin district, 87 kilometres from Rize and 16 kilometres from the district centre. It was declared a tourism centre on 19 April 1987. The Rize culture and tourism directorate lists what people come for: the yayla itself with its traditional houses, the thermal spring (kaplıca) and winter holidays. In summer people hike, camp and head into the mountains. In winter there is heliskiing in the Kaçkar Mountains, which, according to the directorate, was first offered in Turkey here in 2004. That answers the question of when to go: in summer for walks and greenery, in winter for snow.

The road to Ayder follows the Fırtına River. The Fırtına Valley is formed by streams from the slopes of the Kaçkar Mountains. GoTürkiye calls the Fırtına the province's best-known river, full of water and suitable for rafting, and the district culture directorate mentions old stone arch bridges. Rafting carries risk: the conditions, equipment and rules are set by the operator, so ask the operator for its permit for this activity before you pay.

Further up the valley stands Zilkale, a castle about 15 kilometres south of the centre of Çamlıhemşin, on the western slope above the river. According to GoTürkiye, the rock beneath it rises 750 metres above sea level and 100 metres above the riverbed. The castle has three rings of walls; the middle one holds a guardhouse, a chapel and the main tower, once four storeys high. The castle was recently restored. Above the whole area rises Mount Kaçkar with the national park of the same name; in 2026 the KAÇKAR BY UTMB mountain race was held there on 11–13 September.

When to go: rain and warmth by month

The eastern Black Sea is rainy all year, and Rize shows it most. According to the long-term averages of the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM) for 1927–2025, Rize gets rain on 13–16 days every month. The wettest month is October, with about 294 mm of precipitation; the driest are April and May, with about 97 mm. Trabzon is drier: in July an average of about 37 mm and fewer than 8 rainy days, and in October about 113 mm. It is warmest in August, when the average daily maximum in both cities is about 27 °C; in January the average temperature on the coast is about 7 °C.

That makes the choice simple. July and August are the warmest and driest months on the coast and the season of the high yaylas. May and June bring fresh greenery and the first tea picking. Autumn is the rainiest, especially in Rize, and by then Sumela Monastery is already on its short schedule. In winter the coast is mild, but there is snow in the mountains, and a trip to Ayder becomes a winter one.

How many days you need for the region

By the editors' estimate, three full days are enough for the three main stops. Day one is Trabzon and Sumela Monastery, which lies south of the city. Day two is Uzungöl: the road into the mountains takes up most of the day. Day three is Rize with its tea garden, followed by Ayder and Zilkale if you have a car. If you want to stay on a yayla, walk a route in the Kaçkars or go to Sera Lake, allow four to five days. This is an editorial estimate, not a rule: a lot depends on the weather and on whether you travel independently or on a tour.

To avoid returning the same way, you can fly into Trabzon and out of Rize–Artvin Airport. According to the Rize culture and tourism directorate, it opened on 14 May 2022, is in the Pazar district and is 34 kilometres from Rize. Check the airlines' websites for which flights operate there on your dates.

How to rent a car in Trabzon

A car gives you the most freedom: public transport to Uzungöl, Ayder and Zilkale is infrequent or runs without a published timetable. According to DHMİ, the Turkish airports authority, rental offices operate in the arrivals hall of Trabzon Airport, and there are other offices in the city.

• Licence. The rules for foreign driving licences are set out in Turkey's Road Traffic Regulation (Karayolları Trafik Yönetmeliği). Its current official text could not be read on 7 November 2026, so the period of validity of foreign licences is not given here.
• What you need depends on the country that issued your licence. For example, the UK Foreign Office requires British drivers to carry a 1968 International Driving Permit or a notarised Turkish translation of their licence. Citizens of other countries should check the page of their foreign ministry or of their embassy in Turkey.
• Age, driving experience, deposit and bank card requirements are set by the rental company itself. Read these clauses of the contract before booking, not at the desk.

Photo: Bjørn Christian Tørrissen · CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sumela_From_Across_Valley.JPG)