Daily Sumela Monastery Tour

Daily Sumela Monastery Tour — A Trabzon Day Trip to the Cliff-Hanging Monastery

Marvel at one of Turkey's most spectacular sights on this daily Sumela Monastery tour, a full-day excursion from Trabzon into the forested mountains of the eastern Black Sea. Clinging to a sheer rock face some 300 metres above the Altindere valley, the Monastery of the Virgin Mary at Sumela (Sumela Manastiri) has watched over the pine-clad gorge for more than 1,600 years. This Trabzon day tour combines the drama of the monastery with the lush scenery of the Macka district, a highland lunch, a visit to a remarkable cave and a taste of famous Black Sea rice pudding — a complete daily excursion for lovers of history and nature alike.

Highlights of the Sumela Monastery Day Tour

• Sumela Monastery — the Byzantine Monastery of the Virgin Mary built into a cliff in Altindere National Park
• Macka and the Altindere valley — the deep green gorge and waterfall area beneath the monastery
• The viewing balcony — the classic viewpoint for the full face of the monastery on its rock wall
• Zigana highland and the Zigana tunnel — a lunch stop in a unique mountain setting
• Karaca Cave — one of Turkey's finest caves, rich in stalactites, stalagmites and columns
• Hamsikoy village — the home of the Black Sea's most famous rice pudding (sutlac)

Founded, according to tradition, in the 4th century AD, Sumela Monastery grew over the centuries into a great religious complex of chapels, a rock church covered in frescoes, monks' cells, a library and a sacred spring, reaching its final form in the Ottoman period before it was abandoned in the early 20th century. Restored and reopened to visitors, it remains one of the most breathtaking monuments in Turkey, its painted rock church and terraced buildings seemingly suspended between forest and sky. Reaching it from the valley floor is part of the experience, with the monastery revealing itself dramatically as you climb.

Beyond the monastery, this daily excursion from Trabzon takes in the wider beauty of the region. You stop for lunch at the Zigana highland holiday village, pass through the Zigana tunnel, and visit Karaca Cave with its extraordinary rock formations — a place long believed to ease the breathing of asthma sufferers. On the scenic return along the historic road you pause at Hamsikoy, the village famous throughout Turkey for its creamy rice pudding, before heading back to Trabzon. Fully guided and including lunch and all entrance fees, this Sumela day trip is one of the finest day tours in the eastern Black Sea.