Roadtrip: Trabzon, Sumela Monastery

 

I am quite behind with sharing our 5000km road trip that has ended a few days ago. However I will slowly catch up!

Hidden between the green high mountains (at about 1200 meters) near Trabzon is the Greek Orthodox Sumela Monastery (Sümela Manastırı). 

My mother went here about 25 years ago when there was no one, entry was free and you could reach by car very closely. Now you have to leave your car at an expensive parking spot and pay for a bus to take you up and then walk the last 800 meters upstairs. 

 It is not suitable to visit if you can't walk well. We went during high season and it was very crowded, I'm sure it is better to visit in Fall. Unfortunately the monastery has felt victim to a horrible renovation which pretty much ruined it. 

The walk to it is right in the green mountains which was beautiful and the monastery must have been breath taking back in the day. 

I found the amount of people and the state of the place off-putting but am glad l did visit as it is a very unique place and a UNESCO world heritage site.

Last Vacation post, St. Augustine

Happy New Year everyone! Already 12 days have passed, time flies. We have already been back home for a week but Jet lag and both catching the flu (most likely on our flight back) took a while to become human again.
We spent our last week in Florida in St. Augustine, we were there for a few hours last year while driving through.

St. Augustine was the exact opposite of Tallahassee, it is right at the coast and due to its history very touristic. The house we stayed in was a 5-minute walk from the beach.

There was this beautiful sculpture garden, free to visit, donated by a local sculptor, Thomas Glover, who passed away a while ago, here is the story behind the park.

8 sculptures were made by Glover, and 8 more were from other artists.

We were staying in a house taking care of 2 Scottish terriers and a parrot. After weeks of missing our own dogs, the dogs we took care of in Tallahassee and St. Augustine were wonderful.
We arranged these sits through TrustedHouseSitters where we also get our own sitters when we travel, no money gets exchanged (besides of a yearly fee at the site itself which ensures a safe environment), it is a great site. If you want to become a member use this code for 25% off RAF112470.

We saved quite some hotel costs this way and we could travel in a calmer way instead of changing hotels every 1-2 days. We had a few rainy days but it was not cold and it was great to wind down before our long trip back.

We didn't do a lot of shopping here as our stuff could barely fit in our car when we arrived :)

We visited the historic part on a sunny day, I did not take that many photos due to last years visit.

Traffic is crowded so we parked a little further away and walked, parking in town can easily cost 20$, we found a free spot :)

The town gets also lots of visitors due to the fireworks during New Year, but it was a bit chilly and we rather stayed with the scared dogs than go outside.

The town gives a bit of a staged feeling, it doesn't feel like the usual American towns, but is worth a visit when in the neighborhood, 1-2 days is plenty. We mostly went to the beach as the dogs loved that as well.

Like last year we had the extra atmosphere due to the Christmas decorations.

We did not go to the lighthouse this year, it has a cool black and white swirl design.

Some people had the beach as their back yard!

These people know how to enjoy life :)

We came back with 9 large suitcases and 4 pieces of hand luggage, it was crazy! Some stuff for the new house, and materials for the shop, all thrifted, of course!