Day three was çay day, which is fitting because Rize is the capital of Turkish tea. We had an even more leisurely 10 a.m. pick up after our final wonderful breakfast and checking out of the hotel.
Our driver hailed from Rize and you could tell he was glad to be driving along his streets and showing Rize off to us and us off to his friends in Rize. The first stop was at our driver's brother's fish restaurant to take our lunch order. We would head up to Rize castle first and come back down for lunch waiting for us. Rize castle is perched high up on the hills above the main town below. There is a çaybahçe, or teagarden, up there and it is a wonderful spot to sit and enjoy it too! Tea grows everywhere in and around Rize. Seriously. In between buildings, on vacant hillsides. There are no vacant lots because they are all being utilized for growing tea. On the way up, our driver stopped and grabbed a few handfuls from someone's tea farm. After leaving the castle, we stopped at a neighborhood collection point for tea where people sit and separate the leaves from the stems. It was a very unassuming building in a residential neighborhood, but most people seemed to be tied to tea in one way or another in that town.
From there, our driver went to the local tea factory and coerced them to let us in where they were very generous and offered us a full tour of their facilities and then invited us to share a cup of tea with them! Them being two of the managers, not the entire factory workforce! We were all very amazed that they would just open the place up to a bunch of foreigners without any notice. I learned all about tea production and selection. Çaykur, the company that welcomed us, is supposedly the largest tea producer in the world. Who knew? Lunch was the local special hamsi, or anchovies, breaded and fried just like almost all fish I've tried in Turkey. They were good, but required a lot of work to separate the flesh from the bones. They weren't quite small enough to be able to eat them bones and all.
(Çaykur is also the sponsor of the local football club. So much a sponsor that the team changed their name from Rizespor to Çaykur Rizespor. Their logo is a tea leaf. Quaint.)
Our driver wanted to head home to freshen up, so he dropped us off at another tea/botanical garden so the boy could get some time being outside and run around. We were so full of tea from the castle, tour, lunch, that we abstained, although it too was a great place to sit back and enjoy a cup. It was located on a hilltop opposite the castle and was covered by large shady trees. The boy did indeed have a blast running around and making lots of new friends and soon it was time to go. We made a few last minute stops and were soon off to the airport for the short flight home before we all had to get up and go to work the next day. It was a full and fulfilling trip. It's a corner of the country that not even our Turkish friend had visited before. I was glad to have seen it and experienced so much in such a small amount of time. Thank you Trabzon and Rize!
Our driver, picking some tea for us. This is all black tea, by the way.
At Rize Castle. That's all tea on those hillsides opposite.
What a welcome stop this was. I think we were exhausted by being in the van so much the previous two days. This day just seemed luxurious.
Not a bad view from the playground.
The boy found a minaret his own size. Li'l muezzin.
Our sweet ride for the weekend. "Allah Korusun" means "God Bless". There's the requisite picture of Ataturk and in the opposite corner a sticker for the local football club Çaykur Rizespor.
The tea factory. I have to say that they've got it down.
No comments:
Post a Comment