Blogs from Krim, Ukraine, Europe

Tne final postscript to the excitement of the disturbance in Istanbul. We checked a few web sites to see if we could fathom out any more details. One website had the tagline: 'Istanbul becomes ‘war zone' on May Day.' Even by my standards that's a little bit sensationalistic and a stretch of the truth. Europe 1914-18 and again in 1939-45 were war zones. Even my bedroom when I was a child was a war zone as my mother used to say: ‘Christopher, this bedroom looks like a bomb has hit it!!'. Istanbul yesterday. No, despite the presence of riot police and an armed response unit we felt perfectly safe. In fact safer than usual as all the petty criminals (pick pockets etc…) were probably at the riots!!! Yalta is on the South Coast of the Crimean ... read more

The Crimean Mountains represent a range of mountains running parallel to the south coast of Crimea. Toward the west, the mountains drop steeply to the Black Sea, and to the east, they transform into a steppe landscape. Crimean Mountains consist of three subranges. The highest is the Main range. Main range is subdivided into several massifs, known as yaylas or mountain plateaus (Yayla is Crimean Tatar word for “Alpine Meadow”). They are: * Baydar Yayla * Ay-Petri Yayla * Yalta Yayla * Nikita Yayla * Gurzuf Yayla * Babugan Yayla * Chatyr-Dag Yayla * Dologorukovskaya Yayla * Demirji Yayla * Karabi Yayla The Crimea’s highest peak is the Roman-Kosh on the Babugan Yayla, 1545 m above sea level. The most important passes over the Crimean Mountains are: * Angarskyi Pass near Perevalne village, on the road ... read more

Alupka Alupka is situated 17 km (11 mi) to the west of Yalta. Vorontsov’s Palace was built in 1828-1846. It was designed by the English architect Edward Blore (1789-1879) in mixture of Scottish baronial and Neo-Moorish styles. Alupka park which surrounds the palace was constructed from 1824 to 1851, it was designed by Carolus Antonius Keebach. The plants were brought in from the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, from North and South America, and eastern Asia. Currently over 200 species of plants exist within the palace’s grounds. The park has lakes with swans, stone chaos, waterfalls. In 1848, white marble sculptures of lions were installed on the central staircase leading up to the castle. The sculptures were carried out by the Italian sculptor Giovanni Bonnani. Alupka is located at the foot of the 1234 meter Ai-Petri ... read more

From Yalta it took a little under 2 hours for our bus to twist and turn its way along the coastal road to Sevastopol. We were dropped off at the bus station, conveniently located over the bridge from the train station. On arrival we were greeted by the sight of a stationary train with its cargo of an anti-aircraft gun! No doubt that was a reminder if one was necessary that we had arrived in a military town. There are not a lot of accommodation options in Sevastopol but that wasn’t a problem as there were plenty of pensioners hanging around the station offering rooms or apartments. We went with one old lady who said, in English, that her place was in the centre. It wasn’t but it was close enough! We soon found ourselves in ... read more

It took just over 12 hours on the train to get from Odesa to Simferopol. Despite being very comfortable compared to Azerbaijani trains, we still didn’t sleep well! At the station we found somewhere for a McBreakfast before buying tickets on the World’s longest and slowest trolleybus. From Simferopol to Yalta is just 85km but it took almost 3 hours. It’s a nice route but after the first 90 minutes we just wanted to get there! There doesn’t seem to be an awful lot of choice when it comes to hotels anywhere on the Crimean peninsula. We took a taxi from Yalta’s bus station to the Hotel Krim in the centre. There we waited for 15 minutes and it seemed we were no closer to being seen to so we left. We weren’t sorry to walk ... read more