Black Sea port and the cliffside Sumela Monastery
Trabzon, the medieval Trebizond, was the seat of a Byzantine successor empire, and its thirteenth-century Hagia Sophia keeps vivid frescoes. The city's main draw lies inland: Sumela Monastery, built into a sheer cliff face in a forested valley. The green, rainy Pontic Mountains behind the coast are a different Türkiye, with tea plantations, wooden highland villages and the mountain lake of Uzungöl. Black Sea food centres on anchovies, corn bread and kuymak, a stretchy cheese and cornmeal dish.