North East Turkey

Today, we tour Trabzon, once an important Greek colony on the Black Sea. The Greek General Xenophon reached here in 401 BC with 10,000 troops following his retreat from Mesopotamia, as recorded in his Anabasis. 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. If there is time we will visit a couple of Byzantine churches turned into mosques following the Ottoman conquest. We then travel up into the lower reaches of the Pontic Alps to visit as much as is possible of the Sumela Monastery. Spectacularly built into a sheer cliff it dates from the 6th century and it boasts some fine frescoes. The monastery was hastily abandoned in 1923 following the population exchange between Greece and the newly founded Republic of Turkey. We then drive over the dramatic Zigana Pass and follow the old Silk Road to Erzurum, the highest city in the country.

We walk around the historic city of Erzurum, visiting a number of atmospheric buildings left by the Saltukid and other Islamic dynasties. These include the 13th century Çifte Minare Medrese (Double-minaret religious school), the glazed-tile adorned Yakutiye Medrese, a number of elegant tombs with conical roofs, and the Ulu Cami (Friday Mosque), notable for its wooden dome. The afternoon journey onto Kars is beautiful, taking us through remote country where rivers have cut deep gorges through the mountainous landscape.

Today we head out east from Kars to the frontier with the modern Republic of Armenia, separated from Turkey by a deep gorge and river. Here lies the medieval ‘ghost’ town of Ani, a once powerful, church-filled settlement astride a branch of the Silk Route. It has long been empty, its churches succumbing to earthquakes and the elements, but enough have survived to give us a taste of its glorious past. We admire the frescoes within the Church of St. Gregory the Illuminator, before returning to Kars in the afternoon. Here, we visit the impressive crag-top citadel, the 10th century Armenian Church of the Holy Apostles (now a mosque) and some fine late 19th century Russian houses and administrative buildings.

This morning we drive to Doğubayazit. 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. There is a Urartian rock-cut chamber high in the cliff-face behind the palace, flanked by relief-carved figures, and a lovely domed Ottoman mosque beneath it. Weather permitting, the views to Mount Ararat from Dogubeyazit are superb.

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 soda lake seven times larger than Lake Geneva. Navigating the northern shore of the lake, we pass beneath towering Mount Suphan to the medieval city of Ahlat, famed for its monumental tombs and elaborately carved gravestones.

Today we visit Nemrut Dag (Mt Nemrut), located on the southwest shores of Lake Van. This dormant volcano, over 9,500ft in height, has three lakes within its massive crater, and was an obsidian source in Neolithic times. After lunch we drive south to the former caravan town of Bitlis, then continue to Por where we visit a Kurdish village once inhabited by Armenian Christians. Here you will visit a small 7th century church, used as a barn by a village family, and the best collection of khachtkars (Armenian stelae) left in Turkey.

We depart Tatvan for Van, following the beautiful southern shores of Lake Van. A twenty-minute boat ride off shore is the spectacular island of Akdamar, home to the small but delightful tenth-century Armenian Church of the Holy Cross. The exterior is liberally adorned with relief carvings of biblical and other scenes, the interior with a wealth of well-restored frescos. We continue to the city of Van on the eastern shores of the lake and visit the impressive Van Archaeological Museum, home to a fabulous collection of Urartian artefacts.

Today 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. We look up to see a massive cuneiform inscription carved into the sheer cliff-face of the Rock of Van, carved at the behest of the Persian king Xerxes. In the afternoon, we head north to the Urartian fortress of Ayanis, perched on the shore of the lake, which contains an impressive temple dedicated to the chief god of the Urartian pantheon, Haldi. The site is still under excavation.

We drive south into the heart of the mountains to visit the fairy tale fortress of Hosap, which was built by a Kurdish chieftan in the 17th century. Our final visit today will be to the fortified-palace of Çavuştepe, built on a mountain spur snaking out into a wide valley. Constructed relatively late in the Urartian period the site is notable for its beautifully-carved basalt masonry, blind windows, cisterns and twin temples.

We fly back to London from Van, via Istanbul today.