sebinkarahisar castle

This castle is not just off the tourist trail - it's completely off the tourist universe. It is a brooding, black stone castle perched on a vertiginous plug of rock overlooking the cultivated plains of the Anatolian plateau. The views are absolutely spellbinding, and the climb up to the top (not for the faint-hearted) is exhilirating. We were the only Westerners we saw in the whole town. We went for the day to Sebinkarahisar from Giresun on the Black Sea coast (via dolmus). This journey was remarkable in its own right - climbing up steeply through the cloudforest of the mountains, sodden and lush, past streams and forests that would not have looked out of place in Switzerland, or maybe in a Chinese landscape: first hazelnut plantations, then deciduous, then pine. Ultimately ending up in the yayla-pastures c. 2000m, which reminded me uncannily of the bleaker bits of the Welsh hills. We stopped at a little cafe at the top of the pass, and were lost in curling banks of clouds. Then on over the pass, and precipitously down into the arid, central Anatolian plains. The change in climate was remarkable, and very abrupt indeed. The Zigana pass is always touted as the most scenic route through these mountains, but the route from Giresun to Sebinkarahisar is much, much more thrilling.