Turkey - Beyond The Black Sea - The Pontic Mountains (100/151)

Turkey - Beyond The Black Sea - The Pontic Mountains (100/151)

The world's most expensive walking sticks are made in Devrek in the Pontic Mountains, amid endless walnut forests. With its beautiful old Ottoman houses, Safranbolu, once center of saffron production along the Silk Road, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site today. The port town of Amasra, where Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror built a gigantic fortress which he dubbed the "Eye to the World", is one of the most spectacular natural harbors on the entire Black Sea coast. Together, Devrek, Safranbolu and Amasra are the jewels of the Pontus, the former Greek kingdom along the northern coast of modern-day Turkey. In ancient days, the Pontic Greeks held out longer than most against the Roman Empire, only to fall into the hands of the Ottoman Turks a century before Constantinople 1451. The port of Akçakoca still has a monument commemorating the general of the same name who conquered western Pontus for the Ottomans. The film observes the modern-day inhabitants and their way of life: A former elementary school principal who now runs a hotel out of a former caravanserai; the men and women of a co-op which produces artful walking canes; a former bank teller who fled big-city life in Izmir for the pristine nature of Pontus, running a small inn; a farmer and his family who cultivate the lost art of growing saffron; and a miner who discovered his love of beekeeping.