Turkey: From the Black Sea to Mesopotamia

Arrive into Mardin and meet your expert Guide Lecturer and fellow travellers at your hotel. 

Meals: Dinner

Today we explore Trabzon, one of the most historically layered cities on the Black Sea coast. Founded by Greek colonists around the 8th century BCE, its most glorious chapter came in the 13th century, when it became the capital of the Empire of Trebizond, a remarkable Byzantine successor state that outlasted Constantinople itself. It is in this context that we view the outside of the 13th-century Church of Hagia Sophia, with its unusual late-Byzantine relief carvings, and the impressive citadel built on a spur of land sloping down towards the Black Sea. From Trabzon, we climb into the Pontic Alps to visit the cliff-hugging Sumela Monastery, which dates from the 6th century, and it boasts some fine frescoes.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

This morning, we travel inland, crossing the dramatic Zigana Pass and following the old Silk Road to Erzurum, the highest city in the country. We arrive in time for lunch and in the afternoon, we explore this historic city and the legacy of the Saltukids, who made it their capital in the 12th century. We visit the commanding Çifte Minare Medrese, whose twin minarets of intricately worked brick have defined the city's skyline since the 13th century, and admire the glazed tilework of Yakutiye Medrese. We also see a number of elegant tombs with their characteristic conical roofs – a fascinating fusion of nomadic Turkic forms with settled architectural traditions –and the Ulu Cami, the great Friday Mosque, whose remarkable wooden dome is a rare and beautiful survivor.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

We continue our journey, heading south to Kars, which takes us through some of the most remote and elemental landscapes in the country, where rivers have spent millennia carving deep gorges through the volcanic highlands. Reaching Kars in in the afternoon, we explore a very different layer of history: the imposing crag-top citadel, the dignified 10th-century Armenian Church of the Holy Apostles, long since converted to a mosque, and a handsome ensemble of late 19th-century Russian buildings, legacy of the period when Kars was administered as part of the Tsarist empire.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

This morning, we head out east from Kars to the frontier with the modern Republic of Armenia. Here lies the medieval ‘ghost’ town of Ani, a once powerful, church-filled settlement astride a branch of the Silk Route. Today it lies abandoned on a windswept plateau above the Akhurian river gorge, its UNESCO World Heritage-listed ruins spanning Armenian, Byzantine, Seljuk and Georgian chapters. We spend time among its extraordinary remains and admire the frescoes within the Church of St Gregory the Illuminator. In the afternoon, we continue through rugged mountains and over the flank of Mount Ararat to Doğubayazıt. Our main focus here is the romantic 17th-century Ishak Pasha Palace, a wonderfully ornate and architecturally intricate palace dramatically situated on a limestone ridge with superb views over the Ararat Plain below. Weather permitting, the views to Mount Ararat from Doğubayazıt are superb.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

We drive over the near 10,000 feet high Tendurek Pass, past frozen lava flows, and get our first tantalising glimpses of Lake Van, a startlingly blue high-altitude lake seven times larger than Lake Geneva. Its extraordinary colour is the result of high concentrations of sodium carbonate dissolved from the surrounding volcanic rock. This afternoon, we visit the Archaeological Museum in Van. Newly opened, this large museum houses a fabulous collection of Urartian material culture including remarkable metalwork, inscriptions and carved ivories.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

This morning, we drive south into the heart of the mountains to visit the fairytale fortress of Hoşap, which was built by a Kurdish chieftain in the 17th century. The fortress erupts from a rocky outcrop above a river gorge with almost theatrical improbability. We continue to Çavuştepe, a Urartian fortified palace constructed on a long mountain spur snaking out into a wide valley. Built relatively late in the Urartian period, it is notable for its beautifully worked basalt masonry. In the afternoon, we explore the mighty Rock of Van, a natural limestone outcrop topped by Urartian and later-era fortifications and other structures. For those with a head for heights, we view the burial chambers of the Urartian King Argishti, set high in the sheer south face of the citadel rock. We descend to explore the atmospheric remains of the walled city that once stood at the foot of the ‘rock’, completely destroyed bar a couple of well-restored Ottoman mosques, and several ruined buildings including an Armenian church.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

We depart Van for Tatvan this morning, following the beautiful southern shores of Lake Van. On the way, we make a diversion to the offshore island of Akdamar, which is reached by a short 20-minute boat ride. Here we find the small but delightful 10th-century Armenian Church of the Holy Cross. Modest in scale but exquisite in detail, its exterior walls are covered in an extraordinary programme of relief carvings – biblical scenes, animals, foliage and royal portraits. Returning to the mainland this afternoon, we visit Nemrut Dağı. Not to be confused with the famous mountain of the same name in central Anatolia, this dormant volcano rising to over 9,500 feet on the southwest shores of Lake Van was an important source of obsidian in Neolithic times, its volcanic glass traded across vast distances in the ancient world.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Travelling south this morning, our first stop is at the village of Por. Here we visit a small 7th-century church, now serving as a barn for a local family, and what is widely regarded as the finest remaining collection of khachkars (intricately carved Armenian cross-stones) still to be found in Turkey. We continue to Bitlis, which was for centuries a significant stop on the caravan routes linking Persia and the Arab world with Anatolia, and its prosperity is reflected in a handsome collection of historic buildings that survive in various states of preservation. The great Ulu Cami, dating from the 12th century, is among the oldest mosques in the region, and the Şerefiye Mosque is a graceful later addition to the city's Islamic heritage. After lunch, we continue west to Diyarbakır.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

We begin the day with an exploration of Diyarbakır, the great city on the Tigris and the historic heart of Kurdish culture in Turkey. Its most immediately striking feature is its extraordinary circuit of basalt walls which stretch for nearly six kilometres around the old city. We see the Ulu Cami, converted from a Byzantine church in the late 11th century, the multi-arched Dicle bridge which spans the Tigris and the old bazaars and courtyard houses built from the distinctive local black basalt. In the early afternoon we drive southwest across the broad Mesopotamian plateau to Mardin, our base for the next three nights.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner