Samsun
Introduction
Samsun is a city on Turkey's north coast and a major Black Sea port, serving as the capital of Samsun Province. It is best known as the place where Mustafa Kemal Atatürk began the Turkish War of Independence in 1919, a legacy that shapes how the city presents itself to visitors.
Beyond its historical significance, Samsun is a working urban centre with an opera house, a large and modern manufacturing district, several hospitals, three large shopping malls, and Ondokuz Mayıs University. The city is also home to the Samsunspor football club, giving you a sense of its everyday civic life alongside its role as a Black Sea gateway.
Before you go
Samsun is a Black Sea port with a long trading history, known in antiquity as Sampsounta or Amisos and taken over by the Ottomans in 1420. Repeated fires, most notoriously in 1869, and earth tremors destroyed its wooden secular buildings, so the city has no Old Town; it is mostly 20th-century medium-rise, sprawling for 20 km along the coast. Its mosques, by contrast, are stone-built.
The city holds a special place in Turkish republican history: Mustafa Kemal Pasha landed here on 19 May 1919 and proclaimed the fight-back that led to independence, and he became revered as Atatürk. The climate is warm and oceanic — summers warm and showery, spring and autumn pleasant, winters cool and wet with snow uncommon. Samsun developed as a beach resort, mostly for domestic tourism and weekend second homes.
Getting there
Samsun sits on the Black Sea coast highway, with Trabzon to the east and Zonguldak to the west, and Ankara reachable to the southwest via the D795. Samsun-Çarşamba Airport (SZF) lies east of the city and handles frequent flights from both Istanbul airports, daily services from other major Turkish cities, and a few international flights in summer, mainly from Germany. Buses and taxis connect the airport to the city centre and to Bafra for the Kızılırmak Delta. The bus terminal sits at the D795/D010 junction west of the centre, with frequent dolmuşes running downtown; buses from Istanbul run every couple of hours and take twelve hours via Ankara, Kırıkkale and Çorum, some continuing to Trabzon, while services also run from Kayseri, Antalya and Izmir. Metro Turizm and Flix Bus operate these routes. By rail, the Hattı train runs once a day from Sivas, which has fast trains from Ankara and slow trains from the east of Turkey, taking eight hours via Amasya and Havza. A separate train leaves Amasya early morning and returns late afternoon, listed on the regional (Bölgesel) part of the TCDD timetables, while the Hattı is a mainline (Anahat) train. The first couple of hours out of Samsun are a slow, scenic, winding wooded climb, crossing and recrossing the small Mert River. The line was closed for years for track upgrading, and although passenger services resumed in 2023, journeys are as slow as ever. Samsun railway station is central, next to the harbour.Getting around
Samsun is a long, linear city that straggles east–west along the Black Sea coast, so how you move between its districts matters. The good news is that most of what you will want to see sits along or near the seafront, and the tram line follows that same coastal corridor. The tram, operated by Samulaş, hugs the coast from the football stadium in the east through downtown to OMÜ Yurtlar Atakum in the west, and is generally enough for all your touristic needs within Samsun — with one notable exception: it does not reach the airport, and an extension has been debated forever without happening. Card readers at stops give you a partial refund for short trips, which almost always applies. Outside peak hours, and if the tram is not crowded, you can take your bike on board as far as the Diş Hekimliği stop and then cycle down the car-free forest road below the university mosque. From the Yaşam Merkezi stop, able-bodied walkers can head down into the forested valley for a couple of hours: walk past the animal clinic to the edge of the valley, veer right past the waterworks along the track, then follow a path down into the valley; the track also emerges past a quarry onto a small road below a little reservoir where people picnic.
For anything off the tram corridor, you have a choice of bus, dolmuş or taxi. Dolmuşes are much more frequent than buses and ply both within the city and out to nearby villages, but the city travelcard, Samkart, works on buses and trams and not on dolmuşes, so keep some cash for those. Buy a Samkart at the main tram stops or at some shops; a virtual card on the Samulaş app requires a local phone number. Note that Samsun's public transport has not been integrated with Google Maps — locals use Moovit or Samulaş, though the latter is not user-friendly for tourists. Walking is genuinely rewarding along the seafront: except for the stretch east of Doğu Park and a short diversion around the port, it is a pleasant walk or cycle. Cycling options exist but the network is fragmented. Shared turquoise Binbin e-scooters and yellow Fazı e-bikes operate in the city, but without a Turkish phone number you may find registration too fiddly; alternatively, a dozen outlets hire out bikes or e-scooters. The paths along the Mert River are not connected to the coastal paths, and neither are those to Tekkeköy. From Doğu Park you might squeeze your bike into the lifts for the footbridge over the dual carriageway by the Piazza shopping centre. The circular cycle path in Millet Bahçesi is suitable for small children but is also unconnected to the other cycle paths; the garden is clean, has good toilets and children's play equipment, but lacks cafés.
Where to stay
Samsun has plenty of accommodation, mostly ranged along the coast and the main highway. A hotel strip runs along the north coast, with a cluster by the harbour and a straggle of places heading east towards the airport. Staying near the port puts you central and within easy reach of the waterfront; the highway hotels east of town suit you if you want to be close to the airport.
- Ramada Plaza by Wyndham (formerly Serra), Rıhtım Blv 3, by the port entrance — comfy and central, usually clean.
- Sheraton Grand, Atatürk Blv 55 — well reviewed for comfort and service.
- Grand Atakum, 200 m south of the Sheraton — simple, clean and inexpensive.
- North Point Hotel, Atatürk Blv 156 — boxy modern hotel by the harbour with a restaurant.
- Hampton by Hilton, Atatürk Blv 260 on the D010 — on the main highway east, convenient for the airport.
- Samsun Airport Resort Hotel, Atatürk Blv 346 on the D010 — a business hotel with spacious rooms and mostly good reviews.
One caution: the Park Inn, 500 m west on Akal Sk, pongs of cigarette smoke.
Food & drink
< p>Pide is the staple of Samsun eating, consumed in industrial quantities and available in a range of styles. Common versions include kapalı (folded over into a patty), peynirli-yumurtalı (cheese and egg), pastırmalı-yumurtalı (spicy cured meat and egg), and sucuklu-yumurtalı (Turkish sausage and egg). The best-known regional varieties are Terme Pidesi and Bafra Pidesi, named for the towns they come from. The local favourite filling is kıymalı pide, ground beef sautéed with onions, spices, and sometimes parsley, then baked with the dough; it has a notably crunchy, thin, crispy crust and is often served topped with butter. A variant called çiğden pide ("from raw") uses raw ground beef mixed with tomatoes, onions, and peppers, baked directly on the dough without pre-cooking. Fried anchovies are a winter treat, and cafes and restaurants line the harbour and beach without any particular standout.Çakallı Menemen is a regional take on the classic Turkish breakfast dish, known for a thicker, more consistent texture and the absence of egg whites. It is especially popular on the main road into Samsun from the south: around 20 kilometres before the city centre, in the town of Çakallı, the roadside is lined with restaurants specialising in it. Quality and service vary between establishments, so a useful tip is to look for restaurants with plenty of parked trucks, a sign that local drivers favour the place and the food is likely better, even if the service is less polished. Bafra Dondurması is a traditional ice cream from the town of Bafra, made from water buffalo milk, caramelized sugar, and salep, giving it a rich, dense, naturally creamy texture without the elastic chewiness of Maraş dondurması; the milk and sugar are simmered together for up to eight hours, concentrating the flavour. It is usually enjoyed plain or with subtle flavours like vanilla, chocolate, or caramel, and is found throughout the province, especially in Bafra and the city centre. Turşu Kavurması is a traditional Black Sea dish of fresh green bean pickles sautéed simply in oil with tomato paste and onions, served as a tangy side dish that complements regional meals. For drinking, there are no free-standing pubs, but cafes and restaurants serve alcohol.
What to see and do
Samsun's museums cluster around the independence struggle that began here. The Replica of SS Bandırma, the freighter that carried Mustafa Kemal Pasha to the city in 1919, is now a museum of those days, though there isn't much English signage. The Veterans Museum documents Atatürk's activities in Samsun with old photos, maps and personal items, while the National Struggle Museum covers the same ground in shambolic fashion. The City Museum traces local history from a building that once housed Atatürk and later railway workers. More unusual options include the Surgical Instruments Museum in a former railway station, the Toy Museum in Canik, and the Amazon Museum near the foot of the Amisos Hill cable car, which recreates the Amazon women said to have lived in the region. Among the mosques, the wooden Göğceli Mosque in Çarşamba, built in 1206 without a single nail, is the most remarkable, while the Central Great Mosque and the stubby stone Kurşunlu Mosque of 1494 sit closer to the centre. For views, Amisos Hill offers a park, sea views and Hellenistic tombs, reachable on foot from the west or by cable car from Baruthane; Toptepe Tumulus, up the hill from the Mavi Işıklar tram stop, gives a better panorama of the city despite its abandoned concrete structures. The Statue of Honour rearing up in Atatürk Park is the centrepiece of the city's green space, with Batıpark's karting track and East Park's skatepark nearby. The seafront stretches several kilometres northwest with a firm surface for cycling or skating, and Atakum Beach is long and sandy though narrow and lacking shade. Inland, Çakırlar Grove is a small free nature reserve with boardwalks over wetland forest, and you can also try paragliding, horse riding or paintball.When to go
Samsun has a humid subtropical climate that is drier in summer and milder in winter than most of the southern Black Sea coast. Summer is the driest part of the year, so a visit then is less likely to be interrupted by rain, and the season is warm rather than oppressive.
- Summer: Warm and the driest stretch of the year — the safest bet if you want to avoid rain.
- Winter: Cool to mild and wet. Snow sometimes falls between December and March, but temperatures below freezing rarely last more than a couple of days.
- Late autumn and early winter: The heaviest rain of the year falls in this window, making it the wettest time to visit.
Three days in Samsun
Day one: Start in Samsun itself, the Black Sea port city where Mustafa Kemal Atatürk launched the Turkish War of Independence in May. Walk the Old Town and trace the layers of Sampsounta and Amisos beneath the Ottoman and modern Turkish surface. The city's identity is bound up with Atatürk, so let his landing be your frame for the day. Ondokuz Mayıs University keeps the city young, and Samsunspor gives it its sporting pulse.
Day two: Head out into Samsun Province. The Kızılırmak Delta near Bafra is the natural counterweight to the city, a wetland where the great river meets the Black Sea. Return to Samsun in the evening and eat along the waterfront, where the Black Sea sets the mood and the day's catch shapes the menu.
Day three: Use Samsun as a base for the wider region. Trabzon and Zonguldak lie along the coast, while Ankara, Kırıkkale, Kayseri, Antalya and Izmir are reachable by bus or by air from SZF, the airport. Istanbul and Germany are also connected. Metro Turizm and Flix Bus serve the intercity routes, and Hatt is another option. Pick one direction and let the Black Sea coast or the Anatolian interior decide your last day.