Cloud in the valleys until noon, then grass to the horizon
From the tea terraces above Rize, reserve an eleven night overland line to Kars
Eleven nights across the eastern mountains: five in the tea valleys above the Black Sea coast, then six on a treeless plateau at about seventeen hundred metres, ending at a ruined medieval city on a gorge edge. From $3,110 per person, two sharing a double room. June to early October; the high pastures are still shut by snow in May.
Reserve this with the officeNothing is charged here. The form stays open at any hour and a person writes back inside one working day.
Segment by segment, in the order they are taken
The Pontic valleys above Rize
move in: half a day5 nights, from $1,420tea terraces, wooden mountain hamlets and cloud that sits in the valleys until noon
Kars and the Ani plateau
move in: a night in transit6 nights, from $1,690a treeless high plateau, a Russian-planned town and a ruined medieval capital on a gorge edge
$3,110 per person for the whole line, which is what the 2 segments come to added together. The office takes nothing off for buying the chain and adds nothing for buying one piece, so the arithmetic is the whole story and neither way is put above the other.
Wet coast to dry plateau
The two halves have almost nothing in common except the road between them. Above Rize the slopes are terraced in tea to a height of about a thousand metres, the hamlets are timber on stone bases, and it rains: this is the wettest corner of the country, better than two thousand millimetres a year, and cloud sits in the valley bottoms most mornings until eleven or noon. Six hours of driving later you are on grass. Kars stands at around seventeen hundred and fifty metres on a treeless plateau, laid out on a grid under Russian administration between 1878 and 1918, with heavy stone houses to match. At the edge of the plateau the ground gives way into a gorge, and a large ruined medieval city stands on the lip of it.
How the two parts join
The move into the valleys is marked 2: half a day from the nearest coastal city, along the shore and then up. The move to the plateau is marked 4, a night in transit, and it is the honest reason this line is eleven nights rather than nine. The mountain crossing is long, the road is slow behind heavy vehicles in daylight, and running it overnight buys back a whole day at the far end. You wake on the plateau. None of that leg is arranged by this office: the operator holds the ground arrangements, and this office keeps clear of aircraft and shipping altogether, and holds a contract with no carrier. Getting to the country at the start, and away from it at the end, is your own booking.
One part instead of both
Both halves are sold separately, at their own prices and their own lengths. The tea valleys are five nights, from $1,420 per person. Kars and the plateau are six nights, from $1,690 per person. Neither is described here as the better half, because that depends on what you want out of eleven days and this office cannot know it from a form. Some plain differences instead: the valley half has short walking days, wooden lodging and the weather risk; the plateau half has long flat light, cold nights even in August, one very large ruin, and a closed border that limits where the road can go. People with a fixed week usually take one of them. People with two weeks usually take both, in the order given.
Where the figure comes from
From $1,420 per person and from $1,690 per person add to from $3,110 per person, which is the whole line figure, exactly and not by coincidence. There is no reduction for taking the chain and no addition for it either. All figures are per person in US dollars, two sharing a double room. Inside: eleven nights, most of them in family run pensions and two in the wooden hamlets, breakfast daily, the overnight leg, all ground moves after arrival, the site entry on the gorge, and a local guide on two days. Outside: getting to the country, which you book yourself; lunches and dinners, roughly ten to twenty dollars a head; the single room difference, quoted by the operator; and anything you would insure, since this office sells no insurance and advises on none of it.
| The line | Rize to the Ani plateau |
|---|---|
| Segments | 2, each sellable on its own |
| Nights end to end | 11 |
| From | $3,110 per person, two sharing |
| How the figure is built | The sum of the segments, with nothing taken off for the chain and nothing added for a single piece. |
| Getting to the country | Your own booking. This office arranges nothing aboard aircraft or ships, and no carrier is under contract to it. |
| Who invoices you | The company that runs each segment, in its own name. |
Asked before people commit
Do you sort out the visa or the border paperwork?
No. Visas, passports, vaccination, law and medicine sit outside what this office does, and it will not summarise a rule for you even as a courtesy, because a summary is advice. Ask your own government service and the destination's own service, and read the answer yourself. What this office does is place a reservation for eleven nights of rooms, guides and ground moves with the company that runs the trip.
Is the mountain crossing really done sitting up all night?
You are not sitting up: the leg is reserved with a berth. The alternative is a full day of daylight driving on a two lane road, arriving after dark and losing the day anyway. If you would still rather cross by daylight, the operator rebuilds the line at twelve nights instead of eleven, with the extra night charged at the room rate it quotes you directly.
How often does the cloud clear in the valleys?
Not on demand and not on any schedule. Across June to September the valley bottoms are typically clear by early afternoon on about half the days, and never clear at all on perhaps one day in five. Nobody controls it, and this office will not put a number on your particular week. On a shut day you walk the lower tea paths, which are close enough to see properly, and the day still has a shape.
Reserve one segment, or a whole line
This form is open at any hour, and whatever reaches it is read by a person who answers inside one working day. Nothing you send commits you, and no figure is charged at this end at any point.