Advertisement
Published: October 3rd 2008
Edit Blog Post
YALTA
VORONEZSKIY DVOREC Basing ourselves from the nice summer dorms of Priban hotel above a hill in Bakhchisaray we did excursion around Crimea. Next stop was Yalta, we bought our bus tickets the day before and all we have to do is turn up, we are a bit early and there was a bus departing soon so we just hopped on, driver didn't mind. itwas about 2 1/2 hours drive as we get close to Yalta we started seing the Black sea coast nice scenery the road winds on top of the bay and you see the beautiful beaches(albeit some are rocky)down below. Soon as we arrived ar the bus station in Yalta we tried to figure out where is bus 27, the bus we should take to see the sights, tips coming from the young Polish couple. Craig found it and off we go. I told the lady conductor to get us off at "Lastochinko Gnuzdo" the bird's nest so they call, a castle perched close to the cliff. I keep reminding the ticket lady in case she forgets, finally she yelled out to me this is your stop and we got off, we saw immediately the caslte but took awhile to figure
YALTA
BLACK SEA, ALUPKA out how to get down there we cant find a path, asked a couple of people around luckily they understood me.
Started walking the trail down on winding paths past restaurants and people with animals on or with them, crocs, lizards., birds of prey etc. most of the handlers were Tatars people of Central Asian descent, a bit disturbing cause these animals should be in the wild and not paraded around. Craig squirmed when we made the wrong turn and have to turn back, he said that way there is a man with a snake wrppaed around his arm, we dreaded to go that way but that is the way up to the castle, so we quickly passed him. We have to pay a fee to see it!! And in my opinion a pure tourist trap, it was small and nothing really spectacular about it, just sitting on the edge of a cliff, it is actually a restaurant. Spent a bit there then moved on, when we got back to the main road we are lcky to find a minibus waiting so we got on and our next stop is Alupka the last stop for the bus to see
"Voronezsky dvoret" a huge castle complex behind it was a beautiful mountain. we explored the grounds of the castle then we decided to head down towards the coast and have a swim in the Black Sea,we did not do it in Balaklava cause the water looks like its not clean, especially with the nuclear submarine museum nearby it. Anyway we slowly made our way down the cliff and found a spot amongst huge boulders, put our things down and stripped off for a swim, the water is mild, a bit salty, did not expect that, it wasa welcome respite as it is scorching hot weather. We lounged around for about an hour then we moved on, we try to go to the place where the Yalta conference happened, it is called the Livadia Palace. Nothing really spectacular here so we walked around and found a great kebab shop and had our lunch and Baltika 3 of course.
Waited for the next bus back to Bakhchisaray the bus we got stopped in Simferopol the capital of Crimea, alas we really are meant to go there after all, we tried to avoid it as people said nothing really much to do
YALTA
BIRD'S NEST CASTLE there, looks like a big lively city though. back at the hostel went for a shower again and this time brought the right coupon stubs! Took a taxi to the train station the next morning, it was a bit chilly. 2 hours later we are back in Sevastopol and we left our luggages in the train station and off we go to explore the city. We went the wrong way so we headed back to the the other side of town stopping at what we think is the center of town onternet and book accomodations for our next stop in Kiev. I asked the kid in the internet how to get to places, he showed us directions to Hirsonus and off we go, took a minibus then told the driver to drop us off at Kino Russki or smething, from there we wlaked to the Greek ruins at Hirsonus, big complex next to the sea, while there and walking around we noticed a submarine actually on the go and we tokk photos of it there is also a nice church at the site but we did not go in. From there we went back to ton and did the Panoram
museum about the Crimean war, quite interesting, but the guided tours are in Ukrainian so we just pretended we understood every word, nodding at times. Painting of the panorama is around the wall like a 3d effect, paintings and exhibits melding to one, never seen any like this before, this may not be the original painting i think the real ones burned when the building caught fire.
Asked a local where is the magasin shop to buy food for the train, found it and then hurried to the train station to pick up our belongings and off we go to Kiev.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.134s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 13; qc: 32; dbt: 0.1027s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb