Hidden Byzantine Monasteries of Maçka (Vazelon & Peristera) and Sultan Murat Yaylası

While Sumela Monastery receives almost all the attention, it was actually only one of a great triad of medieval Byzantine cliff monasteries guarding the southern valleys of Maçka, alongside Vazelon and Peristera (Kuştul), while above Uzungöl stretches one of the grandest high-altitude plateaus in the Black Sea.

1. The Sister Monasteries of Maçka: Vazelon (270 AD) and Kuştul / Peristera (752 AD)

For travellers with a car who love off-the-beaten-path history surrounded by wild forest:

• Vazelon Monastery (St John the Baptist, 14 km south of Maçka near Kiremitli): founded around 270 AD (a century before Sumela), Vazelon was the wealthiest landowner in the southern valleys of Trebizond, in fact, it was Vazelon's income that originally funded the construction of Sumela. Tucked deep inside a dense pine and hazelnut forest on the flank of Mount Zaboulon, its multi-storey stone ruins and 15th-century cave chapel still preserve fragments of Heaven-and-Hell frescoes in total forest silence.
• Kuştul Monastery (St George Peristera, 15 km north-east of Maçka above Şimşirli): founded in 752 AD on top of a sheer, standalone 300-metre rock pinnacle jutting out above the Galyan Valley like a real-life Meteora tower.

2. Sultan Murat Yaylası (2,200 Metres, 35 minutes uphill from Çaykara / Uzungöl)

If you want to experience a genuine, vast high-altitude Black Sea yayla without extreme hiking, turn west off the Uzungöl road at Çaykara and follow the paved mountain road climbing to the 2,200-metre ridge of Sultan Murat Yaylası. Named because Ottoman Sultan Murad IV camped here with his army and led Friday prayers on this exact alpine ridge while returning from his 1635 Iran/Yerevan campaign (and also the site of high-altitude battles during World War I in 1916, commemorated by the Şehitler Tepesi memorial), the treeless green crest commands an unbroken 360-degree view across dozens of parallel mountain ranges floating above a sea of white clouds.