On the Rize: a road trip to Turkey’s fairytale north-east

A world away from the country’s beach resorts is a mountainous region of dense forests, hilltop villages and hairpin bends – perfect to explore by carA rainy part of the world where locals’ tea-drinking habits verge on obsessive. That may sound familiar, but a shared love of tea is where similarities between Turkey’s Rize province and the UK start and end. In fact, this corner of the country feels more like a mythical land, a fairytale mix of mist-shrouded mountains and dramatically plunging valleys cloaked in impenetrably deep, dark forests.Despite the dramatic landscapes, international tourism has never really taken off here. Running between the eastern edge of the Black Sea and the rugged Pontic Alps, just shy of the Georgian border, it’s been a tricky spot to reach, historically (a bus journey of about 19 hours from Istanbul – though an airport opened in 2022, which cuts this to two hours). Continue reading...

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