The day started early, as we had to be ready for the tour buses by 8am. When we got to the office, the Shore Excursions Manager, Judy, was having a little bit of a flap, as there 5 buses but only 4 tour guides. A little to-ing and fro-ing and, as usual, it all got sorted out in the end. Peter was escorting again, and I escorted him onto coach 5, and then we were off.
We were in the coach for about an hour before we got off to climb into smaller, nimbler minibuses. The minibuses took us up the next stretch of the journey, a narrow winding road with hairpin bends and single lane stretches towards the monastery and a point where we would get out and walk. They did stop for a photo opportunity though. The view across to the monastery was quite brilliant. We were lucky, shortly after, the clouds closed in and buried the view and then it started to rain.
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| The Sumela Monastery, near Trabzon |
Out of the minibuses, it was time to walk. The path is pretty poor, there are steps, some of them steep and uneven, and a particular stretch of very knotty and tangled tree roots, that some of the less able struggled with, but after 15 minutes of uphill, we finally got the monastery itself.
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| View from one of the Sumela Monastery windows - the weather is closing in. |
And we loved it. There were too many people there, and not enough of the monastery buildings were open for us to explore (in our opinion), but it was still brilliant.
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| Sumela Monastry from it's entrance |
The monastery was apparently founded in 386 AD by a couple of Greek monks Barnabas and Sophronios - who both were both told in a dream by Virgin Mary to take a sacred icon, The Panagia, to a cave and set up the monastery. And that's what they did.
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| The cave entrance had been walled up. Examples of the fresco's on the windows of that wall. |
It probably wasn't quite as well constructed as it is now originally - I read that the monks probably lived in wooden cells hanging off the sides of the cliff until about 1300. But over time it got better, and the cave was painted and the monastery thrived until 1923 - the time of the Exchange of Populations, when 1.5 million Greeks left Turkey and went back to Greece, and about .5 million Turks did the opposite. The monks were Greek, so they left.
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| Fresco's inside the Sumela Monastry cave chapel |
Sadly, the monastery took a bit of a bashing after that, used by tobacco smugglers and gutted by fire. But it was rescued by a State Forest Ranger, and is now one of the most popular tourist and religious sites in Turkey.
An awesome place.
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| Fresco's on the outside of the cave chapel wall at Sumela Monastery |
The only hiccup with today's tour was not that we lost the guide, but that we lost a couple of passengers. Peter was stood out in the rain waiting for the passengers to return, but two decided they preferred Amy's coach to ours. It didn't take long to work it out, but it does cause a little bit of a panic when we thought we'd have to find two elderly, not so fit people somewhere out on that path or in the monastery.
It was a morning tour, so by the time we'd had lunch on the ship, we were ready for the off again at 2pm. We decided we'd go in and see what Trabzon had to offer. We'd got a map with a few highlights marked out, so an hour or so around the town would be interesting.
Well we never got to see the highlights - but we did get to see quite a lot of Trabzon.
Our first little foray ended up with us down along the harbour road. Lots of little shops full of all sorts. We noticed that mostly only men on the streets. Which I didn't think was unusual as Turkish culture allows that the men go out to do the shopping and mix in town. Women less so. We were curious about the little back streets and the run down buildings leading off them, but I got some odd stares as I walked along the grubby roads. We then realised that there were women about, but they were wearing more makeup and less clothes than the rest of the muslim women of Turkey. We worked out they were probably working girls (there were lots of hotels around), and decided it might be appropriate for me to leave....... Quickly!
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| The street alongside the harbour, it looks innocuous, but maybe it's not all it seems. |
We went on to explore Trabzon some more and got lost. But what a city! It reminded us a little of Istanbul, all the mosques, the masses of yellow gold in the main street shop windows, and the cluttered turmoil of the little back street shops.
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| One of the derelict areas we saw, it looks like a war zone. There are still people living here! |
We came across some derelict areas and the central square, saw men hold hands and dance in a circle and women beg with their children. It was an interesting afternoon, and one I'd quite happily repeat.
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| Men holding hands and dancing in the city square. I don't think you'd see this in the tolerant West! Turkey has a very different culture from our own. |
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| An example of the overflowing back street shops - colourful and overflowing. |
So that was the Sumela Monastery and Trabzon. We've got a leisurely evening ahead and tomorrow we are at Batumi, Georgia. No escorting tomorrow, we get a day to ourselves. Let's hope the weather will be better than today.
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