Trabzon Gateway East: The Silk Road Heritage, Georgia Batumi Border Crossing, Artvin and the Georgian Church Heritage, the Coruh Valley Whitewater, and the Eastern Black Sea to Caucasus Route
The Trabzon gateway east route covers the Silk Road heritage of Trebizond as the primary western terminus, the Georgia Batumi border crossing and the day trip to Georgian Batumi, the Artvin provincial Georgian Orthodox church heritage, the Coruh River whitewater rafting, and the complete Eastern Black Sea to Caucasus travel route.
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Trebizond as Silk Road Western Terminus
Trebizond served as the western terminus of the northern Silk Road route from the 9th to the 15th century, the most important alternative to the southern Silk Road that avoided the Mongol-controlled central Asian routes and connected the Pontic Black Sea port directly with the Tabriz market of the Ilkhanid Mongols and the Chinese goods that the Marco Polo generation of travelers carried through the Caucasus mountains. The Trabzon Khan caravanserai ruins, the Byzantine customs records, and the Venetian and the Genoese merchant house documentation from the 13th and 14th centuries are the most complete evidence of the Silk Road terminus function that the Trabzon historical archive preserves.
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Georgia Day Trip: Batumi and the Caucasus Border
Batumi, the Georgian Black Sea resort city 110 kilometers east of Trabzon and accessible by the shared taxi in 3 hours via the Sarp-Sarpi border crossing, provides the most easily accessible foreign country day trip from any Turkish city with the Georgian Adjara region capital, the 6th century BCE Colchis heritage site, the Batumi Boulevard and the modern casino resort district, and the Georgian wine and khachapuri cheese bread that are the most distinctive single food experience in the South Caucasus. The Trabzon to Batumi day trip is the most frequently made international day trip on the Turkish Black Sea coast.
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Artvin: The Georgian Church Heritage Province
Artvin province, 200 kilometers east of Trabzon in the Coruh River canyon, contains the most impressive collection of medieval Georgian Orthodox churches in Turkey with the Opiza monastery ruins of the 9th century, the Doliskhana church of the 10th century, and the Porta cathedral of the 10th century that represents the most architecturally ambitious Georgian church construction in the Artvin region. The Artvin churches, built by the Bagratid Georgian kings who controlled the Coruh Valley in the 9th and 10th centuries, are the least visited and the most architecturally significant religious buildings in eastern Turkey.
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Coruh River: The Whitewater Canyon
The Coruh River from the Erzurum plateau to the Georgian border at Borjomi, a 400-kilometer whitewater descent through the deep canyon that the river has carved in the Pontic-Caucasian mountain range, is the most technically demanding and the most scenically spectacular river rafting journey in Turkey and the destination for the international whitewater kayaking community that values the Class IV to VI rapids of the lower canyon. The dam construction program on the Coruh has permanently flooded several of the most challenging rapids sections, making the remaining upper sections the most urgently visited river in Turkey for the whitewater sport.
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Eastern Black Sea Route: Trabzon to Kars
The overland route from Trabzon east through Rize, Artvin, and Erzurum to Kars and the Ani medieval Armenian city ruins, covering 500 kilometers through the most dramatically varied landscape in Turkey from the Black Sea coast through the Pontic mountains to the Anatolian plateau to the Armenian border, is the most complete single cross-section of the northeastern Turkey geography and the most historically layered overland journey in Turkey. The Trabzon-Artvin-Erzurum-Kars circuit by rental car in 4 to 5 days provides the most rewarding single overland journey in northeastern Turkey.
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Ani: The Medieval Armenian Capital Day Trip from Kars
Ani, the medieval Armenian capital 45 kilometers from Kars on the Turkish-Armenian border, is the most important single medieval Armenian architectural site in the world with the 10th century walls, the Cathedral of the Holy Redeemer, the Church of Saint Gregory of the Tigranakert, and the Seljuk mosque in the most haunting abandoned medieval city landscape in Turkey. The Kars-Ani day trip from the Trabzon overland circuit is the most historically powerful single day visit available in northeastern Turkey.