The land of endless rain 🍃🌿 Our trip to Rize/Diffrences of climates

Turkey is not a simple country. It has a huge history, territory that belonged to different peoples for many years, and a bunch of ethnic regions of different groups. Such diversity extends not only to history, but also to the land itself. The territory of Turkey lies at the junction of Europe and Asia, and its terrain, seas, and geographical position create an enormous variety of climates. And so, from our side of Turkey, near Antalya, where the climate is mostly drier, or more precisely, subtropical Mediterranean, and the greenery consists of shrubs and fir trees, we decided to visit a completely different side, which is actually located on the exact opposite side and has radically different landscapes. And so, after 1,500 kilometers of driving from Antalya, we were greeted by the land of eternal rain — Rize. I gave it this name because of the constant moisture in the air and rain at least once a day, even in summer. If Kemer (the city near Antalya where we live) is struck by unbearable heat most of the time, around 30–35+ degrees, approximately from May all the way until September, and people pray for at least one day of rain, in Rize, meanwhile, it never ends.

And so, we set off to visit some other cities of Turkey, going to see our friends, and since we were already crossing a huge number of kilometers, my mom wanted to visit a new city that she had noticed a long time ago, adding it to the already quite large list of other cities we had visited in this country. So, after renting a phenomenal little cabin on the banks of a river, we arrived at our destination after 500 km of continuous driving. As my brother says, we were driving backwards, because having left in the morning, we arrived late, at around 1 a.m. Getting out of the car, we immediately felt the spirit of Rize’s humidity and the whisper of the river. To our surprise, the owner happily greeted us, led us into the cabin, and showed us where everything was. Of course, there was little to see at night, and there was nothing to look at, so we immediately went to sleep.

The morning was incredible. There were landscapes from all sides. Rize is famous for its endless greenery from every direction. Because of the constant rains and the slopes of the Pontic Mountains, raging rivers are always flowing here. We rented an authentic little wooden-style house, with a huge window-wall overlooking the river. There was even a second floor inside, which served as a bedroom.

After waking up, the first thing your eyes fall on is the window in front of you, which held a view of green hills. These hills are completely planted with tea bushes, because these humid conditions are ideal for the tea-growing industry. In this way, this part of Turkey reminds me a lot of China and its tea plantations. But about that in the next post, today we have another section of interesting things about Rize.

@olga.maslievich

@bugavi

So, why does this part of Turkey have exactly these weather conditions? The climate here is humid subtropical Black Sea. The Black Sea here, like any sea, strongly affects the climate. It evens out the temperature, cooling down in winter and making summer colder, while warming up in summer and making winter warmer. The temperature in Rize is colder here than in Antalya because of the constant precipitation, which prevents the sun from heating the city so strongly. The temperature here on the coast is around 23–28, and it is easier to handle. In winter, it can be around 5–10+, and sometimes snow falls, but it melts quickly. In Antalya, meanwhile, instead of snow in winter, it pours with rain like from a bucket, while summer is humid and very hot.

So, as I read, this difference between these two places in summer happens because of several reasons, but one of the main ones is the anticyclone. Because of the subtropical high-pressure belt, which forms anticyclones in Antalya, the evaporated water in the air is suppressed and does not fall as rain. It heats up, and in this way the air dries out. Therefore, in Antalya we have dry and hot summers. Because of the hot and dry summers, plants here have to be adapted to long periods of drought, so the landscape is very different from the humid Black Sea coast. Grass does not really like growing here, so in summer it is mostly yellow. Desert shrubs and fir trees, on the other hand, do not care, they grow wonderfully here.

The Mediterranean itself has a special feature: in summer, an anticyclone dominates here, while in winter the circulation changes, and instead of an anticyclone, a cyclone comes, and the season of abundant rains begins. In Rize, there is nothing like that, and cyclones dominate almost all the time. The opposite weather here is maintained by cyclones, but in general it is most strongly connected with the mountains. During cyclones (it is easy to notice from the name, the exact opposite happens), evaporated water easily rises upward. Here, the evaporated water is carried by the wind toward the Pontic Mountains, where it runs into them, rises, cools, and falls as rain. This cycle continues here every day, even without cyclones, and in this way creates constant humidity, which is an ideal environment for strong vegetation. In this way, all around us we see landscapes as if from an eternally green country.

It was a perfect morning, this cabin had almost no disadvantages, except that there was absolutely no connection in this part of the city. Just a few meters before our cabin, it ended 😭 well, at least I could completely concentrate on the beautiful nature around us instead of my phone. The first thing we did the next morning was go out to the river. The morning was rainy as always, the river was raging, overflowing with water.

Looking at the hills around us, we went down to the river. There was a little drizzle from the sky. Without going too far from the shore, so that we would not be washed away by the strong current, we took a few photos.
And then messages started coming to me. In this connectionless zone, this was the only place where our Internet worked, so I immediately started replying to people there 😂.

@olga.maslievich & @darine.darine (me)

You know, I feel like any river can have a strong current under specific circumstances, but the name of this particular river is Firtina, which means storm in Turkish. This river does not change its mood. It constantly moves downward with a rapid, strong, turbulent current, so in my opinion, such a name suits its state perfectly. Official Rize websites say that this river has one of the highest uses of water among the local rivers. By the way, the river has been mentioned globally since ancient times.

The name Fırtına has a very ancient origin. Even before modern records, in Greek descriptions from 2,000 years ago, during the Roman and Byzantine eras, this river, with exactly this name and the same meaning, was mentioned as Pordanis, and later as Prytanis. One of the texts that mentioned this name was a letter from a Roman army commander and philosopher, who told the Roman Emperor Hadrian what had happened to him on the road from Trabzon to Georgia.

This wild, deep water is very suitable for the activities Rize is famous for, especially rafting. From early morning, through our huge window, we could already see several boats rapidly passing by us. While we were standing in the water in the river, people started loading a rafting boat near us, both tourists and locals. I had never tried this kind of extreme sport before, and I thought, this is the perfect opportunity. This is one of the main features of the city, we live right by the river, and on top of that, as we found out from the owner, he himself has an extreme sports company in these areas, and since we stayed specifically with him, he gave us a small discount. We will tell you about this in the next post.

After a few minutes, the little drizzle gradually began turning into a huge downpour, and we started running back to our cabin.

Even though we still had our car then, we decided to wait until the rain stopped before setting off to explore further. An hour later, although the rain had weakened only a little, we decided there was no point in sitting around doing nothing, and set off to explore the surroundings of Rize. We went to a spectacular place, a little further downstream, by that same river. Getting out near a restaurant, we went to an observation platform.

We got a view of an incredible 18th-century bridge. It is called Timisvat Köprüsü, or the Ottoman Bridge. By its construction, it really looks ancient, although structurally it is wonderfully built, if with such constant weather it has been standing here for more than 200 years! Honestly, when I see it, with such a shape, I imagine ancient Japan more, a mythical fairy tale, and geishas crossing it.

@olga.maslievich & @darine.darine (me)

This arched shape was used by the builders because of that same turbulence of our river-storm. Since during rains the water level could rise greatly, it was built as high above the water as possible. And the material, stone, worked wonderfully as well, since wood quickly deteriorates from water. Because of this, you can see several identical old bridges in this area in terms of shape and material. In ancient times, this bridge served the purpose of connecting both sides of the valley settlement.

The views from the shore were incredible. Fog hung over the river. On the other side, beyond the river, steep slopes covered in greenery rose sharply. Dense leafy trees mixed with dense tea plantations. Among those plantations, hotels stood on the slope, similar in style to our cabin. They stick out sharply from the slopes, standing on very steep inclines. Honestly, they look like a shaky construction, but it's truly atmospheric.

Walking near the river, we saw an attraction — a swing into the sky. Of course, I would not be me if I did not try it. Honestly, from the ground it did not look that scary. You could only understand how high it actually was once you were already sitting there and they were lifting you up. Higher, higher, higher, and when it already seems like this is the maximum, they lift you even higher. And then “WHOOSH” and they let you go, and you swing right above the river. It was fascinating to look at the river and mountains from this swing.

How high they were lifting me :D

So, later on, since it was already getting dark, we got back to our place, and looked over the photos made, since there was no internet lol. So this was the first day of our stay in Rize; I will tell you about our other adventures in this rainy land in the next post

(Credits to @bugavi with some of the photos I have in my post, since I didn't have storage in my phone as always, and took some from her to fulfill my story)

Bye bye everyone 🏞️🍃🌿