Things to do
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Fatih Mosque
The Byzantine church of the Panagia Chrysokephalos, the cathedral of the empire of Trebizond, converted after 1461 and still carrying its opus sectile floor. It stands in the old walled town.
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Boztepe Hill
The hill directly behind the city, where the tea gardens look down over the whole port and the Black Sea. It is a short taxi ride and the standard end to an afternoon.
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Hagia Sophia
A thirteenth-century Byzantine church on the shore west of the centre, carrying the best surviving Komnenian wall painting anywhere, with a carved frieze of Adam and Eve over the south porch. It functions as a mosque and the frescoes in the nave are screened.
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Kaymaklı Monastery
An Armenian monastery of the fifteenth century on the eastern edge of the city, now inside a farmyard, with the refectory frescoes still legible on the walls. Ask at the house for the key.
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Panagia Theoskepastos Monastery
A rock-cut monastery on the Boztepe slope, founded in the Komnenian period and long derelict, with a cave church and terraces above the city. Restoration has been slow and access can change.
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Sumela Monastery
A Greek Orthodox monastery founded in the fourth century and built into a cliff face at 1,200 metres in the Altındere valley, with frescoes covering the rock church inside and out. It reopened in stages after a long rockfall closure.
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Trabzon Museum
A Greek banker's mansion of 1913 with painted ceilings intact, holding the city's archaeology in the basement and the house itself on the floors above. It is the finest interior in Trabzon.