Take the morning flight from Istanbul to Trabzon (or you can arrive a day before) .The guide will be at the airport to collect the party. We will start the tour with a visit the Hagia Sophia Museum, a significant 14th century Byzantine church, overlooking the Black Sea, which boasts some frescos of considerable importance.

From Trabzon we travel a short way up the Zigana Valley, to Macka in the Altindere National Park to visit the Monastery of the Black Virgin at Sumela. In this truly spectacular setting, the seven story Sumela Monastery hangs from the side of a 1200 ft cliff overlooking a steep river valley. This has been a monastic site as early as the 4th century AD and was a renowned monastic community partly because of its remarkable location and the ascetic principles characterised by the early years of Christian monasticism. Drive to Artvin via Rize and hopa along the coast of Black Sea.

Trabzon city tour and Altindere national park