We didn't bother with breakfast this morning as we believed that a sleep-in would be more worthwhile. We got up after a couple of wake up alarms and packed rather quickly. When we went to checkout we were accused of stealing two towels which I did not stand for it at all. I did get an apology but it did leave us with a bad taste in our mouths. We caught a trolleybus back to the bus station but somehow managed to miss the stop and ended up getting off at a random stop to go back in the correct direction. [View Full Entry]

---

---

We went to breakfast today with high hopes. I told the lady who was serving us that I was vegetarian and she nodded with understanding. First course was a weird uncooked aubergine, tomato and mayonnaise dish that neither of us could eat. It was such an unusual breakfast dish that we thought it must have been leftovers from the night before. The next course was even more unusual, it was a steak with rice and parsley. I reminded the lady again that I was vegetarian and she took it away. I realised I wasn't getting anything instead so I nipped to [View Full Entry]

---

---

We got up rather reluctantly for breakfast but were rather pleasantly surprised. We got a Knopper, yoghurt, bread and cheese, a normal green salad and fried eggs with bacon. Almost a normal breakfast. We trekked down to the bus station which was rather arduous due to the heat and lack of shade. When we got there we found a bus that was ready to leave for Yalta so we hopped on. The journey was rather good for views of the coast line. We attempted to get photos, but we were moving too fast. Every time we saw a town we thought [View Full Entry]

---

---

Breakfast was an interesting affair to say the least. We sat down to a glass of juice and a yoghurt. Next we were both given a salad of shredded carrot and cheese mixed with a lot of mayonnaise. The bread was our best yet with a texture not unlike wood, this was accompanied by some meat stuff. Our final part of breakfast was quite difficult to describe but I'll give it a go. It looked like a mound of cottage cheese with raisins in but we suspected it may have been curd. We aren't entirely what it was but it was [View Full Entry]

---

---

Around half five I went to the bathroom on the train to be ill and decided that it was near enough arrival time that I could get up properly. The sun hadn't risen when we began looking out of the window so we saw the naval port in dusky light. When we arrived at the train station around half six we headed into the main station to sit and enjoy solid ground and formulate a plan for accommodation. We were instantly bombarded by pushy men offering taxis. After consulting Lonely Planet which was useless and had no information about Sevastopol, we [View Full Entry]

---

---

The idea of the long day that laid ahead kept us in bed slightly later than I wanted. This led to me having a go at Rob who took too long packing his bag (i did mine the night before) and overshot my planned leaving time. We caught the metro one last time to the train station which was rather uneventful apart from one man who seemed irritated that we'd dared get on the metro with backpacks. The next seventeen hours were possibly the longest and most painful we've been through in our later lives. The beginning of the journey lulled [View Full Entry]

---

---

Bright eyed and bushy tailed we weren't this morning. We went to bed slightly later than we intended so getting Rob out of bed was a bit of a chore. We were picked up outside St Petersburg hotel at nine. An American man called Irwin came along which wasn't terrible because it did make the price cheaper. The drive to Chernobyl was pretty bad. It took almost an hour to get out of Kiev and our guide drove like a true Ukranian. Forget being ill from radiation, I was surprised we made it there in one piece and without a single [View Full Entry]

---

---

We got up nice and late again today and made our way to the ticket office to find out about trains to the Crimea. Ingeniously we had copied out the necessary words from the dictionary in order to find the information. We thought it was a great idea but the woman serving us looked slightly bemused writing the information in our little book. Lonely Planet suggested a bookshop/coffee shop where we planned to get dinner. Not surprisingly it had closed, so we chose a café nearby which advertised English menus. We both got a salad due to our severe lack of [View Full Entry]

---

---

We actually managed to get up when the alarm went off today, though we did do it with difficulty. I think it's because the room is so cold that neither of us want to get out of bed. We had a fantastically makeshift breakfast eating out of a plastic container that we bought yesterday, bought for the food inside the container. We caught the metro rather easily to the nearest stop to the caves monastery. After a short walk we arrived at a large monument overlooking the city with an amazing view. We followed the path round to the monastery and [View Full Entry]

---

---

All plans of getting up early were lost when we slept through our alarm. We are lucky that everything here is open later so it doesn't matter too much if we do sleep in. We finally got up when we got a call from Tour Chernobyl confirming our trip. We made sandwiches out of the bread and cheese we bought yesterday. Rob moaned about me putting the bread in the fridge, but it is so cold in the room that it hardly mattered anyway. We had a bit of a run in with a surly cleaner who tried to imply that [View Full Entry]

---

---