From the town of Kırklareli in northwest Turkey, we turned off the main road and headed eastwards towards the village of Demirköy. The sun shone in a blue sky, lighting up the trees in their red autumn garb and the golden yellow grass. But it was the glinting snow on the hilltops to the north that we were heading for. Although the distant glimpses of snow increased as we drove into the mountains, there was still no sign of it around us, and we began to wonder if the snow had fallen and thawed again. We drove past Erenler and Evciler towards Yenice, the last stop on the mountain road. And there our wish was fulfilled. Suddenly there was snow everywhere, in startling contrast to the colourful dry landscape we had been driving through just five minutes before. In Yenice an elderly man wielding a spade was trying to clear a space in front of his grocery shop.

He told us that the first snow had fallen a week ago, and that we should go higher into the mountains for the best views. So we set out again. Beyond the village the asphalt road rose at a gentle gradient, with heaps of cleared snow a metre high along the verges.
As we approached Mahya, at 1031 the highest summit in the Yıldız Mountains of the Istranca range, the scenery was just as the old man had predicted. Everywhere was white as far as we could see. Snow had replaced the fallen leaves on the trees, and the road had become almost like a tunnel through the snow. The heights above were swathed in white mist. Although the trees were bare, their slender branches were so thickly woven that we could not see more than a few metres ahead.

Once in the forest it would hard to keep your sense of direction and find your way out again. The forest of the Istranca Mountains is mainly deciduous and consists of a wide variety of species. As well as beech, oak, hornbeam and pine, there is aspen, elm, alder, ash, linden, bay, medlar, crab apple, oleander and tree-heath.
The Istranca range runs from northwest to southeast, and the main summits to the north after Mahya, the highest, are Fatmakaya Tepesi (901 metres), Sivritepe (851 metres), Kaletepe (846 metres) and Dalyantepe (725 metres); while those to the south are Kamelya (776 metres), Dikilitaş (503 metres) and Pendik (393 metres). Another arm of the range extends towards the Black Sea to a maximum height of 690 metres, with summits including Kayacık, Aksu and Domuzbayırı.

Very close to the Bulgarian frontier is the village of Geçitağzı, whose inhabitants make a living from forestry, felling trees for the State Forestry Department and on their own land. Tree felling is strictly regulated so as to ensure sustainability of the forests, which are renewed over a cycle of 20 years. The felling season begins in October and ends in April, before the dry weather sets in. At Geçitağzı are large prehistoric tombs of the type known as dolmen, formed of two large upright stones covered by a capstone. The inhabitants of Geçitağzı call them 'kapakkaya', which means 'cap-rock'. Such tombs are widespread in Europe, but not common in Turkey.

Higher in the mountains is the tiny village of Kula, where animal husbandry is the main occupation. In most of the villages in this area the traditional wooden and adobe houses have been replaced by concrete and brick, but in Kula all 24 cottages remain as they were built a century ago. The roofs are thatched with rye straw, which insulates the interior from both summer heat and winter cold and allows the rain to run off without seeping through. They are rethatched every 20 years. After heavy snowfall the road to the village becomes impassable, but the local people are accustomed to this inconvenience.

When we asked how they manage, a grey-haired elderly man wearing a brown kalpak told us, 'What can we do when the roads are closed? We circle round the village square like dervishes!'

* Erdem Kabadayı is a freelance writer