EXPLORE EASTERN ANATOLIA with its fertile plateaux, stunning lakes and mountains, and the architectural legacy of the Urartian, Armenian, Selçuk and Ottoman empires.

Beginning in Trabzon on the Black Sea, travel through Erzurum, Turkey’s highest city, to Kars, set amongst stunning scenery scattered with fine churches and monasteries. Travel along the ancient Silk Road to Lake Van at Tatvan, the largest sodium carbonate lake in the world, with breathtaking scenery, to discover the Urartian fortress at Cavustepe and the imposing Kurdish castle in Guzelsu, once a frontier town of the Ottoman Empire.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Visit St Sophia, Trabzon, with extraordinary Byzantine frescoes, and the 4th century orthodox Monastery of Sumela, clinging to a sheer cliff-face
• Explore Selcuk tombs at Tatvan, and visit picturesque Akdamar Island in Lake Van, with its exquisite 10th century Armenian Church of the Holy Cross
• Discover the lost medieval city of Ani near Kars, and the romantic semi-ruined Ishak Pasa Palace, overlooking Mount Ararat