Routes DOĞU KARADENİZ

Trabzon – Artvin Rotası (D010 Sahil Yolu, Hopa–Borçka üzeri)

Waterfalls and monasteries along the Kaçkar range

DISTANCE: 249 km
DRIVING TIME: 3 h 12 min

Motorcycle
Car

A north-eastern line along the skirts of the Kaçkar mountains, built around heavy waterfalls and thick, oxygen-rich forest.

The wettest and greenest corridor in Türkiye: the Black Sea coast road runs at sea level from Trabzon to Hopa, then turns inland up the Çoruh and Berta valleys towards the Kaçkars and the spruce forests of Şavşat. Tea gardens, the arched stone bridges of the Fırtına valley, wooden highland houses (Ayder, Pokut, Sal, Sahara, Bilbilan), landslide lakes (Borçka Karagöl and Şavşat Karagöl), the Kafkasör bull-wrestling festival at Artvin in July — and, for a driver, endless bends and endless mist.

What to eat

Akçaabat köftesi
hand-chopped beef patties with garlic and breadcrumb, grilled over charcoal
Trabzon/Akçaabat; registered in 2009 and eaten without ever leaving the coast road
Muhlama (kuymak)
young cheese beaten into butter and corn flour until it pulls into threads, eaten straight from the pan with bread
The highland breakfast houses along the Rize/Çamlıhemşin-Ayder stretch
Laz böreği
not a savoury börek at all: layers of paper-thin pastry around custard, baked and then soaked in syrup, with black pepper in the cream
The Rize-Artvin coast, above all Hopa; registered as “Hopa Laz Böreği”, and the pepper in the custard is what marks it out
Hamsili ekmek ve hamsi tava
hamsi is the Black Sea anchovy: baked into a loaf over rice, or floured and pan-fried a whole plateful at a time
The seafront restaurants of Hopa and Arhavi; “Hopa Hamsili Ekmeği” is registered, and the fish is at its best between late November and February
Peynir eritmesi (gorcolo/eritmelik peynir) ve silor
gorcolo cheese melted down until it pulls; silor is a layered dish of thin dough with butter and cheese
Şavşat, with walnut kete beside it, in Şavşat and central Artvin

What to buy

Rize çayı
Turkish black tea, grown on the terraces above the coast and drunk from tulip glasses
The Çaykur shops in central Rize and the Çay Çarşısı; Çaykur for the standard grades, the Çarşı for other blends
Anzer balı
honey from a single high meadow with an unusually rich flora — famously expensive, and famously faked
Rize/İkizdere, Anzer Ballıköy; registered, so look for the sealed and numbered certificate
Sürmene bıçağı
a forged knife with a horn or wood handle, made in the same town for generations
Trabzon/Sürmene; registered in 2018 — the shops around Hükümet Caddesi and the workshops on the industrial estate
Maçahel (Camili) kestane balı
chestnut honey: dark and faintly bitter, from a UNESCO biosphere valley that is also the gene centre of the pure Caucasian bee
Artvin/Borçka
Feretiko (Rize bezi)
a rough hand-loomed cloth of cotton warp and hemp weft, sold as towels and hammam wraps
Workshops in central Rize, Çayeli and İyidere

Road notes

The Çam (Sahara) pass on the Şavşat-Ardahan road is on the D-010 at about 2,470 m; in winter it closes for snow, drifting and ice, so check the road authority closures before you set off.
On the coast road, the sections Çayeli-Pazar and Arhavi-Hopa (Kıyıcık) drop to a single lane after heavy rain because of landslides and falling rock; leave time to spare on wet days.
Go to Ayder and Uzungöl early in the morning; in July and August the middle of the day is gridlock. At Ayder no cars are allowed up to the highland: there is a covered car park at the entrance and a free shuttle.
The last 10-15 km up to highlands such as Pokut, Sal and Bilbilan are gravel or dirt; after rain they turn to mud, so high clearance or four-wheel drive is essential and a motorcycle is risky.
For Şavşat Karagöl and Sahara the real window is May to October; Karagöl is about 25 km from Şavşat and the last part of the road is narrow gravel, slippery when wet.
Fill up not on the coast road but immediately before you turn off for a highland or a pass — in Artvin, Borçka or central Şavşat. There are no stations higher up.
Camili (Maçahel) is about 50 km from Borçka. Turkish citizens need no permit, but it is a military border zone, so carry your ID; foreign nationals must arrange permission in advance. The road is rough — the 50 km take 1.5 to 2.5 hours.
During the week of the Kafkasör festival (8-12 July in 2026) there is no accommodation left in Artvin; if your dates fall there, book well ahead.

Along the way

Kaçkar Dağları
a glaciated range rising to 3,937 m directly behind the tea coast, with alpine lakes and summer pastures
Sümela Manastırı
a Greek Orthodox monastery founded in the 4th century, built into a cliff face 300 m above the valley floor
Palovit Şelaleleri
a waterfall deep in the Fırtına valley, reached by a rough track through spruce forest
Ayder Yaylası
a highland settlement at 1,350 m with hot springs at 55.5 °C, open the year round
Şavşat
an upland district of spruce forest, wooden houses and lakes on the way to Ardahan
Fırtına Vadisi
the “storm valley”: the wettest corner of the country, with Ottoman arched bridges and the castle of Zilkale on a rock above the river

Itinerary

The route passes through 12 named stops. The line between them is the routed road geometry the map draws — and the distance was measured off that line.

Trabzon (Meydan)
Araklı
Of
Rize
Pazar
Ardeşen
Fındıklı
Arhavi
Hopa
Cankurtaran Tüneli
Borçka
Artvin (merkez)

Directions in Google Maps

Sources

8 SOURCES

This record is the counterpart of the route card on İz's Explore screen. The whole shelf, and how it was compiled, is on the route shelf. İz is not open to everyone yet; it lives inside the OtoTasdik vehicle wallet app.