Leaving Samsun this morning takes me out onto the coast road and through the mountains and forests. I didn’t know that Turkey was so green, but the Black Sea climate is mild and wet for most of the year, and the current cold spell is expected, but not such low temperatures.
I stopped off for a short break in Fatsa, a small, but attractive town with about 130,000 people. Fatsa has an interesting history and dates back past the Roman occupation and Ancient Greeks, who took over this region when their nations were at their peak. Fatso had a moment of infamy in the 1970′s when run by a left wing government and linked to the 1980 Turkish coup d’état.
 Along the seafront. |
 The Canik mountains frame the town. |
I head further along the coast, and soon I will have to turn south towards Erzurun and the Iran border. I past through Ordu, which means ‘Army’ and has a history of military encampments.
Once on the E97 south, I turned off for an hour to catch sight of the Sumele monastery, a seriously impressive array of buildings built in to the wall of a mountain.
 The monastery is 1200m up. |
 It dates back to 386 AD. |