Trabzon

Hop a coastal-road dolmuş for the 3 km east, then climb the steep stone stairs up through the Zağnos Valley — you'll pass directly under the arches of the Ottoman aqueduct that still spans the ravine. Ortahisar ("Inner Castle") is the Byzantine acropolis where the emperors of Trebizond actually lived and were crowned, perched on a rock spur with sheer drops on three sides. The walls are mostly gone but Ortahisar Fatih Camii — formerly the Panagia Chrysokephalos, the gold-domed coronation cathedral — still anchors a maze of cobbled lanes where laundry hangs between Byzantine and Ottoman stone.

Tip: Slip behind the mosque to the small platform on the eastern wall — you'll see the entire Zağnos aqueduct arching across the gorge below, the single best free view in the old town. Most visitors miss it because the entrance through the side alley looks like someone's back garden; just keep walking, locals don't mind.

Walk five minutes south down from the castle gate to Maraş Caddesi — the charcoal smell hits before you see the sign. Open since 1856, this is where Trabzon goes for fast pilaf: long-grain rice cooked in chickpea-and-lamb broth, mounded onto a tin plate, crowned with shredded slow-braised beef. You order at the counter, eat at long shared tables under green-tile walls, and you're back on the street in under thirty minutes — exactly the kind of place built for a power-walk day.

Tip: Order the kuru fasulye + pilav + tas kebabı combo (~€6) with a glass of cold ayran — the recipe hasn't changed since the Crimean War. Skip the dessert here and grab a piece of Trabzon-style hazelnut helva from the helvacı next door for €1. Ignore the glass-fronted "traditional restaurants" on Uzun Sokak with English menus outside — Kalkanoğlu has no menu in English because it doesn't need one.

Catch a dolmuş marked "Köşk" from Meydan (10 min, €0.50) or walk the leafy 3 km uphill along Soğuksu Caddesi — the road climbs through chestnut trees with the city falling away below. The pavilion itself is a wedding-cake of a white neo-baroque mansion, built in 1890 for a wealthy Pontic Greek banker named Karayannidis, then gifted to Atatürk during his 1930 Black Sea tour and preserved exactly as he left it. Skip the interior (we agreed: exteriors only) and walk the terraced gardens — old cedars, hydrangea beds, and a south-facing lawn where the mansion floats against the green Pontic foothills like a ship at anchor.

Tip: Walk the gardens clockwise: the postcard angle is from the lower south lawn, where you frame the white facade against the dark conifers — the afternoon light hits the eastern wing perfectly between 15:30 and 16:30. Avoid the so-called "panorama café" just outside the lower gate; it's the only overpriced spot on the hill (€5 for tea that's €0.50 anywhere else).

From the Köşk's upper gate, take the ridge path east for thirty minutes — the trail threads through hazelnut orchards with the entire city dropping away to your left, ships sliding into the harbor like toys. Boztepe ("Grey Hill") is the eastern peak that every Trabzonlu climbs in the evening: from up here the Hagia Sophia you stood beside this morning is a tiny white dot on the far western shore, the old town spreads in red-roofed terraces below, and the Pontic mountains pile blue and endless to the south. Tea gardens cover the plateau, families are everywhere, and nobody is in a hurry.

Tip: Walk past the obvious tea gardens with the colored umbrellas to the western stone parapet just below the TV tower — it's unsigned and most tourists don't find it, but it's the only spot where you get Hagia Sophia, the harbor cranes, and the mountains in a single frame. Order a small glass of Rize çay (€0.50) and stay; the light goes golden around 19:00 in summer, peach by 19:45.

Two minutes' walk from the parapet along a lit garden path brings you to a glass-walled terrace restaurant suspended over the city. Run by the municipality and packed with Trabzon families on weekend evenings, this is where to end the day with proper Black Sea cooking and the best view in town: hamsi tava (fresh fried anchovies, the dish that defines this entire coastline) served sizzling in their iron pan with mısır ekmeği (dense yellow cornbread), and kuymak — molten cornmeal-and-Trabzon-cheese fondue scooped up with the bread. Sunset paints the sea behind your plate; the city lights come up while you're still eating.

Tip: Order hamsi tava (€10), kuymak (€6), and mısır ekmeği (€2) — that's the Black Sea trinity and anything else means you missed the point. Arrive by 18:30 to lock in a railing table for sunset; after 19:00 you'll be seated inland. Pitfall warning: avoid the harbor-front fish places near Atatürk Alanı that display giant plastic hamsi at the entrance — they triple-charge tourists for previously-frozen catch. Also skip any "fresh trout from Sumela" offered by roadside touts on the way down; real Trabzon trout doesn't travel in plastic buckets.

On the road back to Trabzon, your driver pulls off the highway at the mountain hamlet of Hamsiköy — every Trabzonlu makes this pilgrimage. Order the village's namesake sütlaç (rice pudding baked over woodfire until the top caramelises, ~3 EUR) and a plate of stream-caught alabalık (trout grilled in butter, ~7 EUR), eaten outside under walnut trees with cool yayla wind in your hair.

Tip: Skip the first three roadside spots with bus-coach parking — they cater to tour groups. Walk into the village proper and find the small house opposite the stone fountain; ask for 'sütlaç fırından' so they bring it warm with the caramelised skin still intact. One serving per person — it's richer than it looks.

Ask the driver to drop you directly at Köşkü on the way into the city — the pavilion sits 5 km southwest of centre on a pine-covered hill. The 1903 mansion, built for a Pontic Greek banker and gifted to Atatürk in 1937, stands brilliant white among hundred-year-old magnolias. The terraced rose garden behind the house offers the prettiest free vista of the Black Sea you'll find in Trabzon.

Tip: The interior is a single one-way loop and the upstairs dims after 16:00 — do the rooms briskly and head straight to the lower garden terrace. The stone bench under the magnolia on the far-left edge frames the cleanest shot of the white façade against the sea, with no other visitor in frame; almost no one walks down that far.

A 7-minute taxi from Atatürk Köşkü climbs the back of Boztepe ridge, the long green spine that rises directly above the old town. The summit terrace is rimmed with çay gardens where Trabzonlu families gather to watch the city lights come on and the muezzins begin their evening call from a dozen mosques at once. Order a tulip glass of black tea (~1 EUR) and stay through dusk.

Tip: Skip the crowded main viewing platform — walk 80 metres east along the ridge to the small wooden tea garden tucked behind the cypresses. From there the minarets of Ortahisar line up perfectly with the harbour cranes, the sky lights up gold around 19:45 in midsummer (18:00 in May), and you'll share the bench with cats and old men, not tourists.

From Boztepe, walk down the stone staircases through Çukur district — 15 downhill minutes past shuttered Ottoman houses and lit minarets — straight onto Maraş Caddesi. Cemil Usta has been the local institution for Black Sea cooking since 1993; on a Saturday night every table is locals. Order hamsili pilav (anchovies layered over butter-and-pine-nut rice, baked in a clay pot, ~8 EUR) and karalahana çorbası (black-cabbage and cornmeal soup, ~2.5 EUR) — the two dishes that define this coast. Average bill 22–28 EUR a head with a glass of ayran.

Tip: Reserve in advance for an upper-floor window table — the view down Atatürk Alanı is the best in the room. Ignore the 'fish of the day' at the front display (priced by weight, dollar-denominated, easy to overpay); stay on the printed Black Sea menu. Pitfall: avoid the laminated-menu fish restaurants along the Sahil Caddesi seafront promenade — they triple their prices for foreigners and the fish is no fresher than what Cemil Usta serves inland.