City Guide · Black Sea

Ordu Travel Guide

Boztepe Cable Car, Perşembe Plateau, and the Black Sea Coast.

Show Me Türkiye May 2026 8 min read

Field notes

Ordu: tips for first-timers.

01 Stay in central Ordu, not on Boztepe. The city centre has the seafront and the food. The cable car is a ten-minute round trip; nothing on top to stay for.
02 Take the cable car up Boztepe, not the road. The road has switchbacks and traffic. The cable car skips all of it and the ride itself is part of the visit.
03 Perşembe Plateau is a half-day, not a day. The river-meander viewpoints are short stops. Budget the rest of the time for the coast around Perşembe town.
04 Eat the pide and köfte inland. The harbour places are tourist-priced; a short walk back from the seafront is better value.
05 The 'Perşembe' trap. There is a Perşembe district (on the coast) and a Perşembe Plateau (in the mountains). They are hours apart. Always check if your navigation is setting a route for the plateau or the coast.

In this story

7 chapters, one story.

01Uluğöl Nature Park1 min
02Ohtamış Şelalesi1 min
03Perşembe Plateau1 min
04Ünye Castle and Cape Jason1 min
05Uzunkum Beach1 min
06Perşembe (the district, not the plateau)1 min
07Boztepe1 min

Ordu does not announce itself. It is one of those Black Sea cities where the coast and the highlands are joined by a single road, and the best way to see it is to drive that road slowly.

The city sits where the Melet River reaches the sea, and the geography behind it rises fast. Within twenty minutes inland you are at five hundred metres. Within an hour you are above the cloud line on plateaus that have been summer pasture for centuries. The coast itself is long and uneven, with hazelnut groves running right up to the beach in some places and stretches of black sand and round pebbles in others.

Ordu rewards travellers who arrive without a fixed plan. The seven stops below cover the things we'd actually drive a friend to. They are not in any official order. Take them in a loop over two days and you will have seen the city more honestly than most weekend visitors do. And if you want to see these places in motion before you go, there are a few of our own films from the region further down the page.

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01Nature Park

Uluğöl Nature Park.

A quiet glacial lake above the hazelnut belt.

1 min read

Uluğöl is the kind of place locals know about and most visitors miss. It sits in a forested basin south of Ordu, the lake reflecting the trees so cleanly that on still mornings you can't tell where the water ends and the forest begins. A short loop walk circles the shore.

The drive in is half the point. You leave the coast highway, climb through hazelnut orchards, pass a few mountain villages where someone is always selling honey by the side of the road, and end up at a parking area that gives no sign that a lake is sitting fifty metres behind the trees. Then you walk through them and there it is.

Bring a picnic. There are a few wooden benches but no proper restaurant on site, which is part of why the place stays as quiet as it does.

Best in late spring (May–June) when the surrounding forest is at its most saturated, or in early autumn when the leaves turn. Avoid right after heavy rain, the access road gets muddy fast.

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02Waterfall · Forest road

Ohtamış Şelalesi.

A two-stage waterfall, fifteen minutes off the highway.

1 min read

Ohtamış is a thirty-metre waterfall, one of the largest on the Black Sea coast, that drops through a thickly wooded ravine inland from Ordu in the Ulubey district. It's signposted off the main road and the final approach is a short forest walk on a wooden boardwalk that the local municipality has actually maintained, which is rare enough to mention.

The pool at the base is shallow and cold all year. People wade in the summer; nobody really swims. The reason to go is the sound. The forest closes the noise of the highway off completely, and what you get is just water and birds. Twenty minutes is enough. Forty if you bring a thermos.

The forest closes the noise of the highway off completely, and what you get is just water and birds.

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03Yayla · 1,500 m

Perşembe Plateau.

The summer pasture that defines this coast.

1 min read

Perşembe Plateau sits at around fifteen hundred metres above sea level, an hour's drive inland from the city, and it is the kind of place that explains the whole Black Sea logic of moving uphill in summer. The temperature drops about ten degrees. The wind changes. Cattle graze. Wooden chalets line the slopes. There is a small village square that fills with tea drinkers in the late afternoon.

The view from the upper ridge is the one that ends up on postcards. On clear days the coast is visible as a thin grey line on the horizon. On cloudy days you are standing above the clouds, and the cloud sea is what you see instead.

If you can arrange to stay overnight in a guest house, do. The morning fog burning off across the slopes is worth the alarm clock.

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04History · West coast

Ünye Castle and Cape Jason.

A Byzantine fortress and a Greek-mythology headland, on the same drive.

1 min read

Drive west from Ordu and the coast gives you two things back to back. Ünye Castle sits on a rock outcrop above the town of Ünye, with foundations that go back to the early Byzantine period. The walk up is moderate, about twenty minutes, and the view from the top of the keep covers a long stretch of the coast. Locals come here at sunset because the western light hits the walls particularly well.

Twenty kilometres further west is Cape Jason, called Yason Burnu in Turkish, which the legend says is named after Jason of the Argonauts who is supposed to have passed by here on the voyage to Colchis. There is a small chapel on the headland that has been rebuilt over fifteen hundred years. The headland itself is a windy, beautiful spot with a clear view east and west along the coast.

Most travellers do both in an afternoon. Ünye Castle first, then drive the coast road to Cape Jason, then continue back toward Ordu in time for dinner.

Note: The chapel is often locked. It is a humble structure, but the headland itself, with its panoramic views of the Black Sea and the changing light, is the main photographic attraction.

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05Coast

Uzunkum Beach.

The everyday Black Sea, long, grey, swimmable.

1 min read

Uzunkum is Ordu's longest beach. It is not Mediterranean turquoise. The Black Sea is grey-green and the sand is darker than what you see in tourism brochures. But the beach itself is long enough to walk for an hour without seeing another person if you go in the right month, and the water is genuinely clean.

Swimming season runs June to September. The sea is colder than the Mediterranean but warmer than the Atlantic, and the swell varies wildly with the wind. On still days it's lake-flat. On windy days the surf is genuine. Both have their fans.

If you only swim once on the Black Sea coast, Uzunkum is a fine place to do it. Bring water shoes, there are pebbles in stretches, and don't expect umbrellas and loungers. This is a city beach, not a resort.

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06Town · Coast

Perşembe (the district, not the plateau).

A working coastal town that hasn't been resorted.

1 min read

Ordu's Perşembe district shares its name with the plateau but is something completely different, a coastal town about fifteen kilometres west of the city centre, with a fishing harbour, a long seaside promenade, and a few unfussy fish restaurants that local families come to on weekends.

The harbour is small enough to walk in five minutes. Most of what you see tied up is small wooden fishing boats. The catch goes straight to the restaurants behind the harbour. Hamsi (Black Sea anchovy) in season, palamut (bonito) when it's running, plus whatever else is on offer that day.

It is the easiest place to eat well in Ordu without thinking about it. Walk in. Look at what they're serving. Sit down.

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07Viewpoint · Sunset

Boztepe.

The hill above the city, with the cable car.

1 min read

Boztepe is Ordu's resident viewpoint. A teleferik (cable car) runs from the city centre up the hillside to a small park, a couple of restaurants, and a viewing terrace that looks straight back across Ordu, the coast, and on clear days a good chunk of the eastern Black Sea.

The ride takes about ten minutes. At the top you can have tea, eat pide, walk along the ridge, or paraglide if you are inclined to that sort of thing, there is a small operation that runs tandem flights when the wind is right.

Sunset is the obvious time to go. The light turns the Black Sea steel-blue and the hazelnut groves below catch the last warm light. Allow about two hours up there if you also want dinner. Note: The cable car (teleferik) operates based on wind speeds. On stormy days, it may be closed. Check the current status at the base station before heading up.

Ordu read from Boztepe is mostly hazelnut trees and red roofs and the long line of the coast. It looks like a place where people live without performing for visitors. That is exactly what it is.

Perşembe Plateau. River meanders that loop almost into full circles at a thousand metres.

Watch the film

See Ordu in motion.

A short cinematic film from our journey.

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