About 62 kilometres south of Trabzon, in Altindere National Park, is the Sümela monastery located on a steep rock face, 250 meters above the ground.
You can also admire the monastery’s beauty from the opposite mountains. Legend has it that the monastery was built in the 5th Century by two Greek monks (Barnabas and Sophronius) because of their intention to found a monastery for an icon of Mary painted by Luke the Evangelist. After the death of the two monks, Sümela became a place of pilgrimage.