Trabzon

A harbour wrapped in cloud; the old Silk Road touches the sea.

On the steep green coast of the eastern Black Sea, Trabzon was for centuries the terminus where the overland silk routes met the water—a Byzantine and Komnenian capital, a Genoese and Venetian trading post, a city Marco Polo himself passed through on his long road home.

Mist clings to the hazelnut-covered hills, and the monastery of Sumela hangs improbably on its cliff above the clouds. Here the Pontic mountains press the sea into a narrow ribbon of life, and the journey traces the very shoreline that medieval merchants once sailed. To stand in Trabzon is to stand at a true historical knot of the Marco Polo route.

The road and the sea, bound together in cloud.