We are often asked how we decided where to go on our trip. Lots of our destinations were picked from a book called "501 Places In The World You Must Visit". The book was a Christmas present from our nephews Simon and Maclean and we loved flipping through the book as we built our travel plans.
The Sumela Monastery, located near Trabzon, is in the 501 Places book. The photo in the book is incredible and it's the reason the monastery was a stop on our trip.
The monastery is built into a wall of rock and it sits 300 metres (almost 1,000 feet) above the valley floor.
Lucky for us, a road has been built to take you most of the way up to the monastery. After a short climb, we walked through the monastery.
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| Overlooking the monastery with the wall of rock on the left |
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| Looking down to the valley below |
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| Steps down to the monastery's central courtyard |
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| Rock Church - built into the wall of rock |
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| Inside the Rock Church with paintings on the rock |
The monastery is amazing to look at but it's also an important part of the Greek Orthodox religion. The monastery used to be home for an icon (small painting on wood) of the Virgin Mary that is believed to possess miraculous properties. The monastery was closed in the 1920s and the icon is now located in a monastery in Macedonia in Greece, however, Sumela monastery remains an important religious site and services held there attract large numbers of worshippers.
Here are photos from the rest of our short stay in Trabzon.
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| Overlooking Trabzon and the Black Sea |
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| Hazelnuts are a major export from Trabzon |
We've now had two great stops in Turkey and we still have one more to go. Why didn't we visit Turkey sooner?
Vanessa and Blake
