Erzurum

Armies have to come this way between Anatolia and the Caucasus, so a series of conquerors have passed through. Those who stayed long enough to influence its architecture included the Seljuks, who first captured it in 1071 AD. They also trashed the neighbouring city of Artze, whose inhabitants fled here and called it the Roman Artze, hence Artze Rum or Erzurum. It was captured by the Ottomans in 1514 and became their military base in the east, although three times occupied by Russia as the late Ottoman empire crumbled. Support for the advancing Russians was the pretext for the 1915 genocide of the city's 40,000 Armenians.

Erzurum stands at an altitude of 1890 m and is bitter cold in winter, often below -10°C by day and -20°C at night. So agriculture is limited and the town's main activities are services, education and natural gas - a pipeline from the Caspian terminates here. Snowfall is limited as winters are dry - early summer is wettest - but whatever falls tends to linger. There are skiing and other winter sports facilities on Palandöken, the mountain just south of the city.

By plane:

1 Erzurum Airport (ERZ IATA) (15 km northwest of city center), ☏ +90 442 327 2837. Frequent flights from Istanbul (both IST and SAW), also from Izmir, Ankara and Antalya. No international flights except winter specials from Russia and Germany. A local bus may run to city centre, otherwise take a taxi. (updated Sep 2025)

By train:

Doğu Express runs daily from Ankara, departing at 18:00 and taking 22 hours via Kayseri, Sivas, Erzincan and Divriği. From Erzurum it continues at 16:00 to Kars, another 4 hours. The return train leaves Kars at 08:00 and Erzurum at noon to reach Ankara at 10:15 next morning. There are couchettes and a buffet but no sleeping cars. For tickets see TCDD.

A tourist version of this train runs three times a week in winter. It makes long stops for sightseeing eastbound at İliç (for Kemaliye), Erzincan and Erzurum; the westbound train calls at Erzurum around 02:00 then makes long stops at Divriği and Bostankaya. You're tied to the schedule without flexibility of stopover. The accommodation is in standard sleeping cars, which have been purloined from the conventional train, so the travel experience on that has been degraded.

A high-speed railway is under construction from Ankara towards Erzurum and Kars, and is already in service as far as Sivas. This has not reduced journey times to Erzurum, as trains east of Sivas are so chronically late that it's impractical to schedule a connection.

2 Erzurum railway station is north end of city centre. It's within walking distance of hotels and other amenities.

By bus:

Buses from Istanbul run six times a day, taking 15 hours via Bolu. From Ankara is 12 hours, from Trabzon is 4 hr 30 min via Gümüşhane, and from Diyarbakır is 5 hours.

They run three times a day from Hopa on the border with Georgia, taking 7 hr 30 min via Rize and Artvin.

Bus lines on these routes include Metro Turizm, Flixbus and Yeşil Artvin Ekspres.