Day 6 of our Black Sea Cruise. Trabzon and the Sumela Monastery

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.  

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

Day 5 of Minerva Black Sea Cruise - Sinop

Sinop is a little town, called a city, on the southern coast of the Black Sea. It's in Turkey, and has a long history going back to 700BC and was once one of the most flourishing Greek settlements on the Black Sea.

But that was then. Now there's not a lot in Sinop to interest a tourist. As I said yesterday, I volunteered Peter to act as escort on the "Sinop city walk and archaeological museum" tour. I escorted Peter.

The walk was scheduled to take 3 1/2 hours, but to be honest that was far too long. There were two museums - the first was the Ethography museum. Basically a (very large)Turkish home, furnished exactly as it was 80 odd years ago. I quite liked the house - the internal decor was so different to what we are used to and made me think of gypsy caravans. Lovely.

A room in the Ethography Museum, Sinop

After that, we visited the archeological museum, which was closed! We did find a tortoise in the grounds though.

Last we went to visit the Aladdin Mosque. Again, I quite liked this. Our guide explained how 90% of Turks are Muslims, but Turkey is not an Islamic State, meaning that religion is kept of of politics and how the country is run. Alcohol can be purchased, people live as practising or non-practising Muslims, the country is tolerant of all other faiths - a bit like the Church of England and Britain. Our guide also explained a little about the Muslim way of prayer to us. The building itself was peaceful, as was the courtyard, and I found the whole experience very pleasant.

Inside the Aladdin Mosque, Sinop

From there, we crossed the road into what used to be the school associated with the Mosque. It isn't any longer, and now it is filled with shops and stalls of local wares. Our guide told us we would have 20-25 minutes there. I wandered off to see what was about.

When I got back to Peter, I discovered our guide had disappeared. "He'll be back" said Peter, "He's showing some of the group the way back to the ship and then he's coming back for us."

Famous last words! 

Our guide did not come back. 25 minutes later, Peter, myself and 5 others from the group were still waiting. We found the lead tour guides who started making phone calls, and spoke to Amy, the ship's Program Manager and also an escort on with a walking tour.

We decided to tag onto Amy's tour and follow her guide back to the ship, but her guide had already gone off with the group and we had delayed Amy - which effectively meant she had been left behind too!

We quickly tried to catch up, but in the twists and corners of the narrow streets, we'd lost them.
To be honest, we'd probably done ourselves a favour. We made our own way back, finding a little shop where Amy could buy proper Turkish coffee, and then finding our way to the harbour, which was a little more interesting than the streets of the city.  So, that was a first. Passengers have got lost from the tour before, but never the escorts!

Not a city I would recommend then.  The highlight of my morning was the Black Throated Diver I spotted in the harbour whilst we were waiting for the tour to start.

Black Throated Diver in the Black Sea - Sinop Harbour

It was a half day at Sinop, so the ship set sail about 1.30 and Peter had an art class at 3pm. It was the tonal study, and there were a 30+ people in the group, so it took nearly 2 hours for that class to complete.

The day ended with a talk from the Very Reverend Dr Victor Stock. We'd decided to go listen because our earlier interactions with him proved that he was something of a character. This held out and we enjoyed his very amusing after dinner speech.

Tomorrow the ship docks into Trabzon, from where we will join the tour to the Monastery of Sumela. I'm quite excited about that one

Day 4 of our Black Sea Cruise - What time did you say it is?

Peter set the alarm for 5.30 am. The amazing thing about the fact that we actually we got up! Before sunrise, bleary eyed and sleepy, we dressed and made our way up to the top deck to see Istanbul and the entrance to Bosphorus.

We were due to start on our journey through the Bosphorus at 6am, when the pilot joined the ship. Sunrise was at 6.08 and the hope was that we'd see sunrise hit Istanbul as we passed. Unfortunately it didn't quite work out like that, but we did get to see Hagir Sophia, the Blue Mosque and the Topkapi Palace in the early morning light.  (You can see them in the top photograph.)

It was freezing on deck, and after a cup of tea and warm downstairs, we decided our body clocks still hadn't worked out what was going on....... and went back to bed. That was at around 7am, and we didn't emerge from the cabin until 11 o'clock, just in time for morning tea and biscuits, (food never stops on this ship).

So after a leisurely morning and lunch, it was time to get ready for Peter's first class. The Opheous Lounge is a lovely place, large and light. Large means that people can spread out, and the first class was, as always on a new ship, chaotic. About 40 people turned up, which meant there weren't enough notes, and they needed help with things like brushes, and boards and paper. But the class seemed to go well, and we think the majority enjoyed themselves and will be back for the next session.

And for us it's now a bit more leisurely relaxing until the morning. Tomorrow the ship will dock into Sinop, where we were going to do our own thing, but as the Excursion team needed someone to help, I volunteered Peter to act as an escort on the walking tour, so we have to be ready by 8am.

So let's see what Sinop brings.