Kars, Türkiye

Tourists come to Kars mostly to see the Ani ruins, but there’s a bunch of stuff to see in Kars itself. (There’s also the Doğu Ekspresi Kars train, a 26-hour train ride from Ankara to Kars, that draws folks here). We had plans to see the Kars Castle, a couple mosques, and the Kars Cheese museum.

First up was rejigging the rest of the Türkiye leg. The plan after Kars was spend a transit night in Erzurum, then drive four hours to see the Sümela Monastery, stay overnight at a nearby hotel and then fly out of Trabzon. However we found out our hotel near Sümela was closed for the season (despite taking our reservation). According to the hotel folks we’ve talked to in Türkiye, there’s been a lot of cancellations due to the geopolitical situation. So maybe our hotel was originally planning to be open but what with all the cancellations, decided to stay closed until busy season.

Rather than try to rebook in the area and run into the same problem, we just booked into the Hilton in Trabzon for two nights. Trabzon is an hour from the Sümela Monastery and is the more common base town for tourists.

We then went out to sightsee in Kars. It’s a pretty dusty town, so I just wore my hiking gear.

The Kars Castle is free to visit and has great views of the city. It was windy and cold at the top, so we took our pics and headed back down.

We checked out the 14th century Merkez Kümbet mosque (just the outside), and the Taş Köprü (stone bridge) near the castle.

Next we walked ten minutes up Atatürk Cd to Faikbey Cd, the Bloor/Yonge of Kars. Another ten minutes down Faikbey Cd brought us to the Kars Cheese museum. (The marketing folks in Kars have done a great job of prepending the city name to everything).

We thought it was just going to be like a chocolate museum, where it’s more about selling product. But the museum was actually pretty interesting, showing how the various types of Kars cheeses are made. We spent over an hour going through it.

We walked back and had lunch at a random döner place which was okay. Had a coffee and dessert at the busy restaurant across the street from our hotel.

We were feeling lazy and dust-clogged, so just showered and took it easy for the rest of the afternoon. I also had some admin stuff to do. We got ourselves organized for the drive tomorrow. The route will take us north to the Black Sea and then hug the coast until Trabzon. It’s faster than going via Erzurum, plus we’ll get to see new scenery.