Sümela Monastery

Sümela Monastery stands in the Maçka district of Trabzon, built into a steep rock face on the slope of Karadağ in the Altındere Valley. It seems to cling to the mountain, and the natural setting around it is as breathtaking as the buildings. Its full name is Panagia Soumela, meaning Our Lady of Sümela, and the complex of monastery and church, about 300 metres above the valley floor, is on Turkey's UNESCO tentative list.

For centuries it was the most important monastery in the region, a school for training monks and a deeply sacred place that kept an icon believed to work miracles. The name is thought to come from the Greek word for black, since the old name of Karadağ was Mela, and Stou Mela means at Mela. With its healing spring, it was the most important pilgrimage site for the Black Sea Greeks and receives hundreds of thousands of visitors every year.

A restoration and landscaping project that began in September 2015 and lasted about three and a half years made the aqueducts and the stairways up to the monastery usable again.