25 August, Maçka to Akçaabat, 42km
Çiner Otel 80TL

A river accompanied us north to busy Trabzon, a port city on the Black Sea. As we dropped out of the hills, the river grew wider and shallower, seagulls squatting on partially exposed rocks in the river bed. Roadworks and too much traffic made our entry into Trabzon unpleasant, but our route was simple: turn left when you get to the sea. Our first sight of the Black Sea was a hurried one, stolen while negotiating a polluted intersection, but once we reached the outskirts of the city we found a seaside restaurant on a small harbour for an over-priced omelette breakfast. And from there gazed at the dark sea stretching east to Georgia, north to Russia and the Ukraine and west to Moldovia, Rumania and Bulgaria. In the evening we joined the locals strolling the seaside boulevard, had tea with an old man we met on our walk who insisted we accompany him to his local çay evi, and dined on köfte (meatballs) for which Akçaabat is famous. Our hotel room was tiny and the bathroom sported two showers, one hot, one cold. The hot water shower had obviously been added as an after-thought, the shower hose stretching across the front of the loo. As the shower heads were on two different walls, you could have a hot shower, a cold shower, or an unmixed combination of the two. 

Between Maçka and Trabzon

Akçaabat on Black Sea