Alps of Switzerland in Turkey !

At the edge of the Black Sea, in the skirts of the Pontique mountain range, discover a green landscape alternating forest, pasture and coastal area which remains a Unique area of Turkey.

 After having crossed the wooded reliefs of the pontic chain, the road plunges towards banks of the Black Sea and Trabzon. The maritime frontage of the mountains is covered with forests of conifers and especially famous plantations of tea.
Trabzon economic and touristic capital abounds in architectural and natural richness. The city is famous with the sardine « Hamsi » fishing, this short period of the season knows an effervescence and frenzy which brings the Turks from all over the country.
Trabzon, in it’s ancient name Trébizonde, past it’s most advanced period during the Greek and then Byzantine presence on the Black Sea. From XIIIth to XIVth century, the Byzantine imperial family, Comnenes, made a very prosperous city of it. Trébizonde was the last bastion remained in the hands of the Byzantines after the conquest of Constantinople before falling in its turn in 1461 under the Ottoman authority. Church Sainte-Sophie, built at the beginning of XIIIth century on a headland which dominates the sea, is undoubtedly the most remarkable witness of this faste period. It preserved most of its decoration paints original. Then we will continue the visits with Ortahisar Fatih camii, or the church of the virgin with the gold head, old Byzantine basilica built in XIst century on the site of a Roman temple.
You should not skip the visit of Sumela monastery. This Greek monastery, founded in IVth century and occupied untill 1923, amaze by the singularity of its architecture and its site. Hung upon the sides of a vertiginous cliff, the church of the Assumption, still decorated with its murals, and the conventual buildings seem suspended between sky and ground.