Artvin Travel Guide

عن المكان

Artvin is what you find when you drive an hour past where most people stop. The province pushes up against Georgia, the climate flips wetter than anywhere else in Türkiye, and the result is a landscape that looks like a different country folded inside this one. There is a reason Artvin is on every Turkish photographer's shortlist and very few foreigners'. The roads are slow. The flights land down on the coast at Rize-Artvin airport and the drive in is winding. The reward is forest density that you cannot find anywhere else in the country, two famous black lakes that lived up to the hype for us, monasteries that have been here since before the Byzantine name change, and villages where the everyday rhythm has not been remade for the tourism economy. The eleven stops below cover most of a long weekend. Take them as a loop from Artvin city, with overnights in Şavşat and Borçka to break the driving. And if you want to see these places in motion before you go, there are a few of our own films from the region further down the page. A long ride over one of Türkiye's fastest rivers. 1 min read The Çoruh River drains a huge part of northeastern Türkiye, and before a series of hydroelectric dams was built it was one of the world's premier whitewater rivers. Some of that still survives in pockets, but the river you mostly see now is calmer and partly impounded. What is new in the last decade is a long zipline that runs across the Çoruh valley at one of its narrower sections, near the Borçka dam. It is a long, fast line, billed locally as one of the longest in the country. It is not for everyone but it is a fair adrenaline option if your road trip needs one. There is also a short suspension bridge nearby that you can walk for the same view minus the harness. A narrow, deep, wildly green valley behind the city. 1 min read Hatila Valley sits directly behind Artvin city and is the easiest national park to reach. The valley is narrow, deep, and impossibly green, it gets among the heaviest rainfall in the country, and the side walls are draped in forest that does not let up. Drive in until the road becomes track and walk from there. You can hike for an hour or for a full day. There are picnic areas in the lower part of the valley and a number of marked trails further up. Brown bears live in here and you will not see one, but the signage about them is mostly accurate. Hatila Valley does what almost no other Turkish landscape does: it is dense, wet, and immediate, and you are inside it five minutes from a town centre.

معلومات سريعة

المدينة

أرتفين

العنوان

أرتفين، تركيا