Trabzon

Black Sea, Turkey 2 tours visit here

Trabzon is a historic port city on Turkey's Black Sea coast and the main hub of the eastern Black Sea region. Founded as the Greek colony of Trapezus around the 8th century BC, it later became the capital of the Empire of Trebizond, a Byzantine successor state that survived until the Ottoman conquest in 1461. A terminus of caravan routes from Persia, it grew wealthy on trade, and that past survives in its Byzantine churches and Ottoman mosques. The best known monument in the city is the former church of Hagia Sophia, a 13th-century Byzantine building that retains much of its fresco work, while Ortahisar (Fatih) Mosque, once the cathedral of Panagia Chrysokephalos, stands inside the old walled town. Most visitors, though, come for what lies inland: Sumela Monastery, built into a sheer cliff in the forested Altındere valley south of the city, and the mountain lake of Uzungöl in the Çaykara highlands. The mood is green and damp rather than Mediterranean; rain falls in every season, mist gathers in the valleys, and the slopes are planted with tea and hazelnut. The city works best as a base for day trips into the mountains over two or three days, and late spring to early autumn is the most reliable season.