"The emperors of Trebizond were famous for their beauty," said Idris Bey, smiling as he handed us glasses of hot black tea. "Perhaps that is why we Black Sea folk are so handsome."
The tea, grown in the nearby plantations was bitter and deliciously savoury. Below our hotel the Firtina River – "the river of storms" – was thundering away.
We had stumbled upon Idris's Hotel Doga earlier that night. We had arrived at Moyy, a stylish pension in the town of Çamlihemsin, only to find it full and had hiked two miles up the road to the Doga in search of a bed.
A few days earlier we had landed in thick fog at Trabzon on the Black Sea coast. We had come to north-eastern Turkey, near the border with Georgia, in search of history: stories of Xenophon, Medea, Jason and his Argonauts, and the decadent Empire of Trebizond had always captured my imagination.
Trabzon, once known as Trebizond, was the capital of the empire. It may have a rich and opulent history but beautiful it is not. It is dominated by a cement factory and a grim harbour, and its people are notoriously conservative and nationalistic. I began to realise why my Istanbul friends had made such quizzical faces when I told them of my travel plans.
"Trabzon happens to be home to two of the world's most stunning Byzantine monuments," I told my friend Giovanni, as we took a taxi to the church (now a museum) of Hagia Sophia.
"How long do we have to stay here?" His face betrayed his rising panic.
Luckily Hagia Sophia is stunning. Its marble carved floor and biblical frescos reflect Trebizond's former wealth, and the intricate carvings on the building's facade show Seljuk and Armenian influences. The Empire, founded in 1204, did well out of the Silk Road, which brought Venetian traders from the west and skilled artisans and craftsmen from the east.
Trabzon's other great monument is the Monastery of Sümela, which is carved into the mountainside. A long, steep climb brought us to a maze of frescoed rooms and corridors tunnelled deep into the stone. About an hour from Trabzon, the monastery is well served by buses and dolmuses (shared taxis) from the city centre.
The next day we left Trabzon: we took an early bus to the central otogar (bus station) and boarded a coach to take us along the coast.
Buses in Turkey are excellent, and their conductors are tourist-friendly. Our route, on a road which would finally end up in Georgia, was busy. Farmers and labourers leapt on and off, weighed down with cases of hazelnuts and tools. Young Georgian woodcutters arrived with their chainsaws, old women with bags of fruit and henpecked sons.
We broke our journey at Rize, the centre of the country's tea industry. Tea was introduced to the region in the 20th century, after the Ottoman Empire lost its coffee plantations in Yemen. Tea drinking in Rize is an art best practised outdoors, in the magnolia-scented grounds of the Tea Research Institute, or in the rose gardens around Rize's Byzantine castle, both of which offer fantastic views down to the sea.
We were planning to head into the mountains that evening, but first took a dolmus a short way east along the coast road, until we found a deserted stretch of beach. It was summer and the Black Sea was tepid, the thick clouds giving the illusion of the horizon being only metres away. We bathed in the briny water, looking back on the great green cascades of tea plantations that coat the mountains, punctuated by slim white minarets.
We walked back the short distance to the town of Çayeli in search of beans. Since 1928, the Hüsrev family (husrev.com.tr) have prepared the finest kuru fasulye (white bean stew) in the country. Simmered overnight in huge copper cooking pans with a little meat, the beans come in a wonderfully thick sauce. They are a small, white, exceptionally tasty variety of bean, grown in a particular village high in the mountains. The hot unctuous pulses are served with, or on, a rice pilav, with a bowl of sharp salty pickles – cabbage, cucumbers, peppers, green plums, carrots and green beans.
At Çayeli we turned off the coast, and took a dolmus up to the town of Çamlihemsin, finally making our way to the Hotel Doga.
Over endless cups of tea at the hotel, Idris Bey did not hesitate to plan our entire stay. Following his detailed instructions we made our way 19km across the peaks to the village of Ayder, where timber houses dot the mountain slopes. The next day we explored the elegant wooden mansions of the villages that sit in the crags around Çamlihemsin. (We stayed at the Doga each night, but the Kuspuni in Ayder is also recommended.)
In the summer, locals head high into the mountains, to their yaylas (summer pastures). At the highest, on Mount Kaçkar, they spend the summer celebrating with festivals and music. A series of fantastic waymarked hiking routes cut across these higher peaks. The Kaçkar region is cool and damp, and the locals boast of countless rare plants, and more than 200 varieties of butterfly. (The UK is home to just 55.)
Çamlihemsin itself is charming, with a series of teahouses, souvenir shops that just about avoid being tacky, and an excellent cafe in the Moyy pension. Each evening we returned to the Doga's home-cooked meals – simple yoghurt or barley soups, vegetable and lamb stews, and delicious imam bayildi. After supper we sat on the small wooden balcony in our room to read, listening to the rush of the river.
We shared our final night with a group of mountaineers from Istanbul who had descended from higher peaks. Idris Bey laid on music: a local shepherd who played a stringed baglama and taught us how to dance the horon, jumping and stamping in a circle. Saying goodbye the next morning was difficult, but Idris Bey smiled. "Don't worry," he said. "You will come back."
• Flights to Trabzon from Istanbul with Pegasus (flypgs.com) cost from £50 return. Doubles cost around £60 at the Usta Park hotel in Trabzon (+90 462 326 5700, ustaparkhotel.com), £15 at the Hotel Doga (+90 464 651 7455), £60 at the Moyy (moyyminiotel.com), and £15 at the Kulpuni (+90 464 657 2052, kulpuni@smallhotels.com.tr)
Thomas Roueché is contributing editor of lifestyle magazine Cornucopia (cornucopia.net)
