Sumela Monastery

Museum Under The Ministry Of Culture And Tourism, Inside Altindere Valley National Park; On The UNESCO Tentative List · Macka, Trabzon

Sumela clings to a cliff face three hundred metres above the Altindere valley south of Trabzon, a Greek Orthodox monastery of the Virgin Mary founded by tradition in AD 386 and rebuilt so many times that what visitors see is mostly a structure of the 13th to 19th centuries grafted onto a natural cave. The rock chapel is the reason to come: its inner and outer walls carry layers of fresco from several centuries, magnificent in composition and badly scarred by graffiti and looting in the decades after the monks left in 1923. The site closed in 2015 when the cliff above it was judged unsafe and reopened in stages from 2020 as sections were stabilised, so how much is walkable depends on when you go. It sits inside a national park of fir forest and mountain river, the weather is Black Sea weather - green, wet and often fogged in - and a shuttle runs from the lower car park up to the steps, which are wet most days.

Altindere Koyu, Altindere Vadisi Milli Parki, Macka, Macka, Trabzon, Turkiye

Open daily in the main season with shorter winter hours, and subject to closure for rockfall risk, snow and stabilisation work - it was shut completely from 2015 to 2020 and has reopened section by section since. A shuttle runs from the lower car park to the entrance. Confirm what is open before driving up; the answer has changed repeatedly.

Sumela Monastery on Spottos · Explore more places on Spottos