Turkey’s highest city – nearly 2000m above sea level – is a great skiing destination in the winter. It’s located on the thoroughfare connecting Anatolia, the Caucasus and Iran. It has also been beset by the countless military campaigns – the last was in 1918 when Russian and Armenian forces massacred the local populations. The city still performs its dual function as military outpost and far-flung trading centre.

 

Erzurum’s few monuments of interest were built by the Seljuks and Mongols. The most celebrated ones are the Twin Minareted Theological School complex, the largest in Anatolia, with mushroom-shaped tombs and a courtyard lined with students’ cells, and the Persian-influenced Yakutiye Theological School, with a particularly notable portal and minaret covered in a lattice work of blue tiles.