Trabzon: the monastery suspended on the Black Sea rock

Former capital of the Byzantine Empire of Trebizond, Trabzon overlooks the Black Sea with a monastery built on a cliff face plunging straight down.

A rental car is useful to reach the monastery.

The Monastery of Sumela, set into a rocky wall at over twelve hundred meters of altitude, remains one of the most spectacular still-standing Byzantine monasteries.

Just minutes away, the Hagia Sophia of Trabzon, a former Byzantine cathedral transformed multiple times into a mosque and then museum, safeguards well-preserved medieval frescoes.

Continuing toward the center you visit Trabzon's Bazaar, a historic market where hazelnuts, tea and products typical of the eastern Black Sea coast are sold.

Toward evening, Trabzon's waterfront animates fresh fish restaurants with views over the Black Sea.

The Sumela Monastery, traditionally founded in the fourth century by two Greek monks guided by a vision of the Virgin Mary, remained an active spiritual center for over seventeen hundred years until the expulsion of the Greek population in 1923.

Trebizond served as the capital of an independent Byzantine empire for nearly two centuries after Constantinople fell to the Crusaders in 1204, surviving until the Ottoman conquest of 1461.