Sinop

After going to bed in the wee hours of last night, we were all a little slow this morning. It was after 10:00a by the time were done with breakfast. It was well-after noon by the time we left the house … after spending a couple of hours relaxing with Kerim and Nalan on their amazing balcony.

Our plan today was to drive to Sinop, a neighboring province in the Black Sea Region of Turkey. Sinop Merkez (aka downtown) is 90 miles from Atakum, where Kerim and Nalan live in Samsun. With a well-maintained highway connecting the two cities, it should have taken us about 1½ hours to drive the distance. Except that we added several detours along the way, so it took us twice as long to get there.

Our first stop was in Samsun’s Bafra district. This was our chance to taste an ice cream known as “balkaymak” [literal translation is honey cream] … a local speciality. It’s made by mixing honey with buffalo milk. The honey gives the incredibly tasty ice cream a thicker, almost chewy consistency that allows it to be served in strips that are shaped to resemble a flower. Very tasty.

A fairly long section of the highway runs along the Black Sea … slightly hazy on this sunny day, which we were told is unusual in the region as this time of the year has fairly high precipitation. No rain in the forecast and the mostly sunny day was one of the reasons why we’d switched our sightseeing plans around.

Our next stop was a 40-mile roundtrip detour … one that was mostly a bust. Kerim and Nalan wanted to show us a couple of the easily accessible falls at Sinop’s Erfelek Tatlıca Waterfalls Nature Park. Alas, the park is temporarily closed due to serious damage from this summer’s major floods that not only destroyed the bridge access to the falls, but also caused some serious landslides. Unfortunately, none of this was apparent until we got within a couple of miles of the park. The upside? There was some nice fall colors to enjoy along the way.

It was after 4:00p by the time we re-traced our route from the nature park to the highway and arrived in Sinop Merkez. The waterfront was hopping with people taking advantage of the unseasonably dry and warm day, which saw a high of 68F today. If not for all the mask-wearing, one wouldn’t know that COVID-19 is still running rampant.

Finding a parking spot on a back street, we walked to Teyzemin Yeri [translates as My Aunt’s Place] for an early dinner. Sinop is known for its special version of mantı … meat-filled mini raviolis, if you will. This dish is made and served in a variety of ways around Turkey and some of the neighboring countries. The most common way is to serve it with a yogurt sauce garnished with sumac, mint, and red pepper oil. In Sinop, the mantı is simply served with a butter sauce and garnished with crushed walnuts. We all ordered the half-and-half version and enjoyed the taste of both. Very, very good.

After our meal, we went for a stroll along the waterfront to enjoy the sunset and returned via the back streets of the neighborhood shopping area. Would like to have dallied longer, but the chill that descended once the sun set encouraged us to return to the car.

Nightfall comes early these days since Turkey does not fall back from Daylight Saving Time. So, we made our return drive to Samsun in the dark and wrapped up our evening by spending a couple of hours chatting on the glass-enclosed balcony.

All in all, a very nice first day of exploring on my first visit to the Karadeniz Region.Read more