{"id":916,"date":"2012-07-26T15:41:00","date_gmt":"2012-07-26T15:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ouritalianfarmhouse.com\/ourstory\/?p=916"},"modified":"2025-08-04T10:38:23","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T10:38:23","slug":"goodbye-to-georgia-gonio-trabzond","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ouritalianfarmhouse.com\/ourstory\/2012\/07\/26\/goodbye-to-georgia-gonio-trabzond\/","title":{"rendered":"Goodbye to Georgia (Gonio-Trabzond)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We said goodbye to Gakha and Maia just after 7:00 this morning and crossed the Turkish border about an hour later, what with buying the required visas and auto insurance.  The Black Sea Coastal Highway is a marvel of fine engineering, and we had the road mostly to ourselves\u2014whether because of the early hour or because it\u2019s Ramadan we weren\u2019t sure\u2014so we made Trabzond around 10:30 and went straight through to Sumela Monastery, intending to return to Trabzond, find a hotel, and visit the Ataturk Museum and the Bazaar District.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The hike to Sumela is very steep and the pathway broken and hard to walk in some places.  Gasping, we dragged ourselves up the final few meters, bought tickets and passed into the monastery proper.  (The Lonely Planet Guide told us we could avoid the very steep climb by driving up to a small car park a ten-minute walk from the monastery, but we have been truly, profoundly changed by association and many long hikes with Gabi and Ruedi, friends we met in Tbilisi.  As proud Swiss, they would no more take the softer, easier way than they would tolerate bad chocolate or cheese.  We made the long, steep climb because that is what we do now!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sumela is a wonder, carved into and constructed out of the mountainside it hangs from.  The frescoes 14th<\/sup> \u2013 18th<\/sup> century) are beautiful, with well-preserved colors but sadly defaced by graffiti where visitors have inexplicably scratched names and other messages into the paintings.  Who would do such a thing?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hot and tired and hungry, we drove a short way back toward Trabzond and ate a late lunch at a trout-farm-cum-restaurant.  The cool breezes up the mountain and the thick forests all around made us reluctant to return to the heat and bustle of Trabzond, so we found a pansyion<\/em> (lodging) just down the road and took a room.  As I write, the clouds are lowering from the heights\u2014we may have fog tomorrow morning.  Tonight we\u2019ll have dinner in the hotel restaurant and fall into bed.  We expect to sleep well.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

PS   Our dinner was the iftar<\/em> (break-the-fast) meal our host, Nirma, prepared for her family\u2014it is Ramadan now\u2014and she served us on a terrace overlooking the forested mountains.  And this morning was clear and bright\u2014no fog as we made our way back to the highway at Trabzond.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We said goodbye to Gakha and Maia just after 7:00 this morning and crossed the Turkish border about an hour later, what with buying the required visas and auto insurance.  The Black Sea Coastal Highway is a marvel of fine engineering, and we had the road mostly to ourselves\u2014whether because of the early hour or
+ Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-tbilisi-to-mondovi","category-other-places-other-times"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ouritalianfarmhouse.com\/ourstory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ouritalianfarmhouse.com\/ourstory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ouritalianfarmhouse.com\/ourstory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ouritalianfarmhouse.com\/ourstory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ouritalianfarmhouse.com\/ourstory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=916"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/ouritalianfarmhouse.com\/ourstory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1378,"href":"https:\/\/ouritalianfarmhouse.com\/ourstory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916\/revisions\/1378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ouritalianfarmhouse.com\/ourstory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ouritalianfarmhouse.com\/ourstory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ouritalianfarmhouse.com\/ourstory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}