Experience the best of Kars

Kars stands at about 1,750 metres on a windswept plateau in the far north-east of Turkey, beside the Kars River. Its streets of cut-stone buildings with baroque details date from the years of Russian rule between 1878 and 1918, and a medieval castle crowns the rock above the old quarter. The Church of the Apostles, a tenth-century Armenian church with a tall drum dome, was later used as a mosque.

A short drive east, on a grassy bluff above the gorge of the Akhurian River, lie the ruins of Ani, the medieval capital of Armenian kings, with a ruined cathedral and long walls facing the border. The pine forests of Sarıkamış, with their ski slopes, lie to the south-west, and Lake Çıldır, frozen hard in winter, lies to the north.

Kars makes fine cheeses, among them a gruyère-style wheel, and its honey and roast goose are also prized. Orhan Pamuk set his novel Snow in the town, and the snowbound streets of the book are easy to recognise on a winter day. Winters are long and bitter here, and the summer months are short and cool.