Trabzon

Trabzon was founded as a Greek colony, grew rich as the Black Sea terminus of the Silk Road, and spent two and a half centuries as the capital of the Empire of Trebizond, the last Byzantine state to fall, in 1461.

The finest survival from that period is the Hagia Sophia on the western edge of the city, a thirteenth-century church with a carved frieze of Genesis scenes across its south porch and interior frescoes of exceptional quality.

Behind the city the Pontic Alps rise almost immediately, green and dripping, planted with tea and hazelnut. Trabzon is the gateway to Sumela and to the highland yayla pastures, and its coastal road runs east to the Georgian border in about three hours.