Aya Sofya Museum

One of Trabzon's star attractions, the Aya Sofya Museum, originally Hagia Sophia (Church of the Divine Wisdom), is 4km west of the centre on a terrace that once held a pagan temple. Built in the late Byzantine period, between 1238 and 1263, the church was clearly influenced by Georgian and Seljuk design, although the marvellous wall paintings and mosaic floors follow the prevailing Constantinople style.

It was converted to a mosque after the conquest in 1461, and later used as an ammunition storage depot and hospital by the Russians, before being fully restored in the 1960s.

Enter through the western entrance into the vaulted narthex to view the best-preserved, vividly coloured frescoes of various biblical themes. As you walk into the church itself, its design becomes immediately obvious: a cross-in-square plan topped by a single dome, showing obvious Georgian influence. A fresco in the southern portico depicts Adam and Eve's expulsion, and here you can also see a relief of an eagle, the symbol of the founders, the Comnenus family. Most of the frescoes within arm's reach have been heavily defaced, and the damage continues - some people have even scratched their names into the metal signs explaining the images! Flash photography is prohibited, in an attempt to preserve the remaining painted fragments.

Beside the museum is a square bell tower, a tea garden set up around a reconstructed Black Sea coast farmhouse, and a serander (granary) from Of county, set on tall posts to prevent mice from entering.

The site is above the coastal highway, reachable by dolmuş from the northern side of Atatürk Alanı.