On this road trip in north eastern Turkey we wanted to explore the Armenian heritage of the country, Lake Van and visit the city of Ani. We had never visited this area before and I was somewhat nervous as it is a very different country to the more European western Turkey but we had a wonderful and enlightening time.
- Recommended days 5
- Budget £
- Difficulty Moderate
Highlights
This road trip started with a bit of drama. Travelling on a budget is always tiring and we were up at 3:30 to leave for the airport and finally arrived at our hotel in Turkey at 22:15. The flights with Turkish Air were both good but when we landed in Mus airport the entertainment started. Mus was not our first choice but as Van airport was closed from September to December for runway improvements (and I had already prepaid for our hotels) we had to change to Mus and drive an extra 2.5 hours each way.
We had booked our car hire with Europcar but when we went through the airport there was no Europcar desk. I checked the paperwork, it definitely confirmed to collect the car at the airport. There was no office outside (it’s a very small airport so I couldn’t really miss anything anyway!) and we spoke to one of the few people who could speak English there and he said there was no Europcar in the city. We couldn’t get back in to the terminal to ask elsewhere so we spoke to a security guy and his mate called someone, then told us people would be here in 20 minutes and then left.
There was no one else around and the airport was almost empty as the passengers from our flight all dispersed. A bit later a car turned up with two guys smoking, one said “Europcar” to us and gestured for us to get in. We were very unsure but had limited options. The guys spoke no English and the car stank of smoke but they drove us for a while and then stopped in some little back street in Mus with a Europcar office! They then proceeded to fill out all the forms, obviously for the first time, checking with another guy on the phone. By now the sun had set.
After about 90 minutes they gave us the key to the car they had turned up in and off we could go. It was dark, the driving standard was very different to Western Europe as far as rules of the road, lights, indicating, parking etc went so it was an educating drive in total darkness. We saw lorries overtaking with completely unsecured loads, u turns on a dual carriageway and more offences than most traffic police see in a month.
Driving through the towns at night was quite enlightening as it was so obviously a very different culture. Even at 10PM there were lots of people out and about (mostly men though) with cars double parked along the main road. It was obviously not a walking culture with people seeming to drive everywhere and just park when they get there, wherever that is. The night time drive felt like a lifetime but we finally arrived at the Doubletree which was a fantastic relief.
On the plus side, the roads were superb, generally far better condition than the UK and traffic cones were non existent! Although the car collection was worrying at the time, we had far more help from people at the airport than would have been the case if the roles were reversed and the people we interacted with couldn’t have been more helpful. I will review my Oura ring to look at stress later but after we checked in we were very soon asleep!
Accomodation in Van
Our hotel in Van, for two lots of two nights, was the Hilton Doubletree. This is a mid sized hotel on the main road just outside the town and has plenty of parking. It seemed to be used for lots of tour groups as well as a few independent travellers.
The service in the hotel was fantastic and a good proportion of the staff spoke English which was lucky as our Turkish was limited to just a few words! The hotel has a spa with hammam, sauna, fitness room and pool which free for use of guests and the option of paid massage services. Wifi in the hotel was good and both room types we had – a corner suite and a lakeview room with balcony – both had lots of space for relaxing and working. The balcony was very much a nice to have, even though there was a six lane road between us and the lake.
There wasn’t anything within sensible walking range of the hotel and there also wasn’t an easy way to get across the road to the lake. We chose to eat in the hotel in the evenings and everywhere else we went from the hotel we had to drive. Being out of town did mean that we were not disturbed by the early morning call to prayer though.
Van Castle
The plan was for today to be a chilled day: 20 mins drive to the castle, walk around and then into town for coffee before going back to the hotel and spa. However, the castle entrance was closed and it took some detective work to find the new one. For reference, if navigating to Van Castle with Google Maps, navigate instead to the “Horse Riding Facility and Café” as that is where the car park and entrance is. Also, the ticket office only took Turkish cash, not card or euro so we had to drive back to the hotel for that (my fault – as the price was quoted in Euros I assumed that meant they took Euros!).
Going back to the castle there was an accident so were routed through the town, via a maze of narrow, rutted streets with the by now familiar beeping cars, very casual parking and junctions with a very inshallah attitude. We stopped for a coffee that didn’t meet Nat’s standards (and the toilet there was both a squat one and filthy so she was still traumatised an hour later) before finally returning to the castle 2.5 hours after originally leaving the hotel.
The castle was superb (dates back to 900BC) and sits on a steep ridge overlooking the whole area. The Urartian capital was built around the base of the hill but over the castle’s long history it has been captured or occupied by Persians, Armenians, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Ottomans and even the Russians (who destroyed the famous mosque at the summit of the hill). That was news to be as I didn’t realise that the Russians had advanced this far in to Turkey in the 19th Century.
We were at the castle over an hour and the ruins were well preserved with work ongoing to make the paths and lighting suitable for visitors with even some guard rails. Later research showed there is a well preserved inscription by Xerxes on the site but we didn’t realise at the time and there were no signs, to that or pretty much anything else other than the reconstructed mosque.
The café onsite only did Turkish coffee and no food so we stopped at another cafe by the lakeside park for a walk and lunch but that café was closed too. There were roadworks and diversions coming back to the hotel so the total trip took 7 hours! We finally reached the spa in the late afternoon.
The parkland along the lake was beautiful and obviously a lot had been spent on it with lots of outdoor gym equipment, kids play areas, seating and lighting and the whole way along from the castle to the hotel had a big cycle lane separate from the road. I think the fact the airport was closed for 3 months Sept – Dec has meant the season ended early here as there was almost no one around although being a Friday afternoon may have influenced that.
We were both very disappointed with Van itself, there is no ‘old town’ as such – it’s all modern-ish concrete houses and blocks. These aren’t well cared for and there is lots of litter everywhere – in the streets and along the roads. The people we have interacted with have been universally friendly so far although Western tourists still seem unusual here. We rounded off the day with a wonderful dinner at the hotel, roasted salmon and a chocolate souffle desert, so that erased a lot of stress.
Ishak Pasha Palace
We had a long drive to Kars, on the Armenian border, so we were down for breakfast at 6:30 to give us plenty of time. The road to our main stop of the day, Ishak Pasha Palace, was through very barren terrain and outside of the towns you struggled to see any sign of civilisation. There were almost no trees and everywhere was just brown grass on the hillsides and green grass on the valley floor, sometimes with goats wandering them.
Traffic was light and the roads were generally good quality dual carriageways. It wasn’t until we got towards the Iranian border that there started to be military checkpoints – 6 in all I think. There were lots of watchtowers on the hillsides and some big military bases too but all the soldiers we met were very polite and we had no problems once they saw our passports.
Ishak Pasha Palace is a 17th century creation, built by a family of Kurdish Ottoman pashas. The palace is built 2000m up on the hills overlooking Dogubeyazit and next to the castle of the same name. Entry was 150TL and was a real bargain. There was some beautiful stonework inside the heavily restored building (damaged by earthquakes, Russian artillery and subsequent looting of the stone) and lots of information in English and the views were naturally spectacular.
We spent maybe an hour inside before walking a little further up the hill to a café where we had baklava and tea and enjoyed the view, looking down on the palace and town. Nat was traumatised again by the toilets so I crossed my legs and waited. It seemed that there is no concept of litter collection outside the towns and the roads and rest areas all had an unhealthy dose of human detritus around them.
Kars
The drive on to Kars and towards the Armenian border was spectacular. We passed Mount Ararat, where Noah’s ark allegedly ended up, and also some incredible multi coloured rock strata. There was a bit of drama when there was no road and we had to drive on a gravel track for a few miles but we soon regained the highway and arrived in Kars.
We parked up having done almost 6 hours of driving, after a few circuits of the area, outside Kars I Sirin Otel. After a quick check in and dumping our stuff we headed out in to Kars, a proper town unlike Van. The streets were wide and tree lined and there were lots of shops and restaurants.
The area in front of the castle had a seating area by the bridge and a spectacular Armenian church, the Church of the Twelve Apostles. The castle was huge and imposing but we didn’t visit and just wandered around enjoying the views and the domestic tourists as there is actually a lot to see in Kars and even a tourist train from Istanbul in the winter to bring the ski tourists.
Nat then directed us to her chosen restaurant, 1855 Gazi. We had a lovely meal, authentic fajitas for me and a Turkish dish for Nat, at a very reasonable price before ambling the streets back to the hotel. It was now starting to get cold and a lot of the cafes had braziers lit to keep the chill at bay.
The next morning we were woken at 5:30 by the call to prayer. The plus side was that we had a nice early morning walk around an almost deserted Kars after breakfast, seeing the same sights as yesterday but with less people. We also had a lovely stop for tea at Kars bazaar yöresel hediyelik & cafe before driving to Ani.
The Ruined City of Ani
Ani is an old Armenian and/or Georgian city on the Silk Road that was captured by the Turks in the 11th century and then destroyed by Chingiz Khan in the 13th followed by earthquake damage in the 14th century. Timur sacked the renewed city in the 15th century and it changed hands many times before the change in trade routes caused it’s gradual abandonment.
It’s a fantastically remote location but had a population of 100,000 people in its heyday and was a major city on the Silk Road. Ani was known as the “City of 1001 churches” and is still a source of great Armenian pride. The churches had superb Armenian frescoes but from todays visit it looks like Erdogan has had them all whitewashed as they are ‘unislamic’, which made me savage as it is meant to be a UNESCO World Heritage site. There was also a surprising amount of litter on the site and it felt like the government would rather it wasn’t there at all and they wished they had demolished it, as planned, in 1921.
We were expecting the weather to be cold as we were at about 2000m altitude but it was actually a baking hot day. Nat didn’t really enjoy the largely ruined city so we didn’t walk to the citadel but probably spent 60 – 90 minutes on the site. There were fantastic views of the mountains and the clarity of the air was mesmerising. There was a very small gift shop on site but the café was only serving tea although the site was surprisingly busy, with lots of domestic tourists although we only saw one other Western couple.
There was also no phone signal so when we left we had to drive the first 2 hours from memory on some very interesting roads, through tiny villages and often just a stony track until we reached a main road and guessed the right direction to get us towards some familiar place names.
The Armenian Genocide
To put the city in a kind of context here is a very brief history and explanation of the Armenian Genocide:
Two thousand years ago the Kingdom of Armenia was the first nation to formally become Christian. It maintained this identity and a thousand years ago its territory stretched from the Caucasian Mountains to the Mediterranean Sea and encompassed most of Eastern Turkey.
With the arrival of the Seljuk Turks from Central Asia in the 10th century the Kingdom of Armenia began its slow decline. As an ally of the Romans the defeat of the Byzantine army at Manzikert in 1071 allowed the Turks to rapidly conquer the whole interior of Anatolia, including Armenia itself. The survivors fled to the coast and found Cilician Armenia which was a Christian bastion for 400 years until finally falling in the 14th century.
The Armenian population was spread throughout Turkey although concentrated in the east of the country with an intellectual centre in Istanbul. In the 1870’s Russia had invaded Turkey through Armenia and occupied as far south as Kars. In 1915 the Turks attacked the Russians (they were on opposing sides in World War 1) who achieved notable success against the Turkish armies. The Turks blamed their Armenian and other Christian minorities for betraying them and siding with the Russians, fearing they would form a breakaway state.
The Young Turks then started a pogrom against the Armenians, arresting and killing the political and intellectual leaders in Istanbul. Non Muslim military units were disarmed and then executed and huge numbers of the Armenian population were forced out of their towns and villages and across the desert to Syria. Along the way they were systematically killed or raped and forced to convert to Islam if women or children. Numbers are obviously vague but estimates range between 600,000 and 1.5 million Armenians killed. There is a more detail in this article on the Genocide Education website here.
The situation is still very raw today with Turkish Nationalists denying the genocide ever took place and doing their best to eradicate any signs of Armenian heritage. There is an interesting and detailed article on Wiki about this, here.
Muradiye Şelalesi Waterfalls
After about 5 hours of driving, pausing to view Mount Ararat again, we stopped to visit some waterfalls at Muradiye Şelalesi, a beautiful wooded valley and popular picnic spot, just off the main road. To reach the café we had to walk across a lovely wooden suspension bridge with some dodgy looking wooden planking so that was good for my nerves!
There were 2 wedding shoots taking place by the waterfall and it was a lovely interlude on the café terrace to have some tea and relax for a while. We also saw some Turkish Kangal puppies, absolutely beautiful dogs and now top of Nat’s list!
Continuing on to Van our fuel gauge seemed to be declining at an alarming rate and the first two garages we stopped in were for lorries only so had no benzine (petrol) but luckily, when we were at about 10% fuel remaining, we found one. The route is quite busy with loaded lorries heading to the Iranian border to trade bit for future reference it is worth noting that although there are a lot of fuel garages, most aren’t for cars.
After 2 more hours we reached the Van Doubletree again after a diversion that took us around the lakeside – this time it was absolutely packed with people in the parks, cafes and picnic areas! The hotel was interesting on arrival as 2 Diyanbakir FC coaches and a police armoured car were parked at the entrance! After a second check in we quickly freshened up before another wonderful dinner of chicken skewers and steamed veg, after which we were too full for dessert.
Akdamar Island and Church
This was our last full day in north eastern Turkey on this road trip so we took the short drive south to the ferry terminal for Akdamar Island. As soon as we parked at Akdamar Nat was sick but that seemed to sort her out and she then felt better. The ferry across to the island was 400TL return and took about 30 minutes with maybe an hour on the island before the trip back.
The island is famous for the Armenian Cathedral of the Holy Cross, a largely intact church built on the island in the 10th century. The inside of the church has some wonderful frescoes and the original blues and reds are still visible although the majority of the painting has been erased by time or vandalism. The outside has fabulous bas reliefs which almost look Celtic and seem to show Persian and Turkish influences with some of the poses and animal carvings as well as a variety of biblical themes. There was a small cafe on the island but we didn’t stop there and walked back through the old monastery ruins and graveyard.
The church was in use until 1915 when it was looted, the adjacent monastery destroyed and the monks massacred as part of the Armenian Genocide. The church was subject to further vandalism, being used for target practise and was even scheduled for demolition in 1951 as part of the government policy to erase Armenian heritage. The Armenian minority in the country is still unhappy with the Turkish name Akdamar rather than the Armenian name of Ahtamar being used for the island and church after the government’s 2005 restoration of the church. The politics are very complex and go back a long time.
It was a 30 minute drive to the hotel and after a light lunch Nat slept for 4 hours while I managed to get a lot of photo editing and note writing done, while things were relatively fresh in my mind. Once she was refreshed we had a lovely swim and hammam session before our final dinner in Van and packing ready for the early morning drive to Mus airport.
Although we probably spent more time driving than sightseeing it was wonderful to explore this part of the country and it was certainly a very different side of Türkiye than the western coastal resorts. The culture is very different and far more Asian than European and other than the initial car hire fiasco we had no problems at all, everyone we interacted with was helpful and friendly even when neither of us knew any useful words in the others language! The scenery was quite spectacular although marred by careless littering and we didn’t see a single electric car or charging port. The driving was an adventure but we got to see some astounding places and it was, as always, great to have some time with Natalya.
What an exciting trip and a lot of driving! Very impressive planning and a great itinerary 😊