Odesa – Pearl of the Black Sea

---

What a palaver! We left Sulina intending to travel up to Chisinau in Moldova. Tourist Information in Tulcea had said we needed to get a bus to Gelati to do so, but this proved troublesome. So, we took the hydrofoil along the Danube from Sulina to Tulcea from where we took the small local bus to Gelati. This took us through rural Northern Romania where the grape harvest has just begun. The narrow country roads were bristling with horses and carts full of baskets of grapes or winter fodder. Getting to Gelati also involves a 15 minute ferry across the River Danube which is not included in your bus ticket. Once across the river we had to negotiate with a taxi to get into the town as there appeared to be no buses.

The Lonely Planet assured us that the train and bus stations are next to each other so the taxi took us to the train station. There are no international routes from Gelati so we walked out to the bus station, about 10 minutes with our rucksacks on. There we were told there were no international bus routes from Gelati either! We could take a 4 or 5 hour journey elsewhere to pick up a bus to Chisinau or Odesa. We decided to think on this and spoke to a taxi driver to go back into town. He told us there would be a 2200 night bus to Odesa leaving from the “Hotel Turist”.

The taxi driver had been so confident we decided to take a chance on him. His colleague took us to the “Hotel Turist” which was closed, not exactly filling us with confidence! Nearby we asked in a couple of tour agencies but nobody had heard of a bus to Odesa, although there might be a 0200 bus to Chisinau but it was far from certain. Still trusting the confidence of the taxi driver we decided to hang around for 5 hours to see if the Odesa bus would show. We found a nice bar to chill out in and a wonderfully decorated Chinese restaurant where the food, though good, didn’t live up to the décor’s promise! At 2115 we decided to head back to the Turist where, to our amazement, the night bus to Odesa was waiting! It left at 2145 so the taxi driver was nearly right!!

The journey from Gelati to Odesa involves a short trip through Moldova. Unfortunately this means border crossings. After about an hour we reached the Moldovan border. Leaving Romania took about an hour and entering Moldova was about the same, although nobody seemed interested in our bags. We did receive an entry stamp in our passports and an hour’s drive later we received our exit stamp at the Ukraine border. Another hour passed while we waited for the return of our passports, and a further hour was spent entering Ukraine. That made for a long night!!

At 0700 the bus stopped. We had reached Odesa and much to our delight we were deposited outside the train station. We had expected to end up at a bus station in the middle of nowhere. ALBA Bus Company, we love you!!! The station café was open but we had no currency. After visiting the exchange place, the café was closed! Explain that!! Anyway, McDonalds is always open and they have wi-fi! Arriving at a city we hadn’t expected to be in at 0700 means you haven’t even looked at where you are going to stay, so the free Internet connection was very welcome.

The first hotel we looked at was the Tokyo Star, a Japanese styled pod hotel. The room we were shown was minute and we couldn’t see where we would put our rucksacks without actually sleeping with them. With nothing larger available we moved on and found the hostel “Antony’s Home” which was wonderful. We had a huge room, use of the kitchen and, luckily for those around us, use of the washing machine!!

We only stayed there one night though as our 15th wedding anniversary was going to be celebrated whilst we were in the city. We decided to go posh for that and had a couple of nights at the Hotel London which was rather plush and had an amazing breakfast buffet. There were only two negatives: the wifi cost extra which, at US$150 a night for the room we thought a bit much; and the entrance was now an automatic door and not a doorman dressed as a Beefeater. With only these two gripes we were perfectly happy. I guess a pool would have been nice though!!!!!!!!!!!

The city of Odesa (spelt the Ukrainian way rather than the Russian) was truly the Pearl of the Black Sea to us. We found it a joy just walking around the tree lined streets and admiring the architecture. There are statues and monuments galore to see, nice beaches, interesting trams and trolleybuses, great restaurants and bars, and also the Opera and Ballet House for a bit of culture. We also explored the port area where you can see the wealth of the local oligarchs in the yachts and be amused by the strange statue of a baby emerging from an egg. The Golden Child they call it for some reason! Opposite the port was one of the most disappointing sights - the Potomkinski Steps - which apparently featured in the film Battleship Potomkin where a pram was accidentally pushed down the steps. I suppose it’s hard to make a flight of steps glamorous so who knows what we really expected to see.

We made it to the opera. After buying the tickets we had no idea what we were going to see. The Russian translation was simply Clowns by Leoncovallo. Before going in we treated ourselves to a delicious pre-theatre coffee and chocolate croissant. Well, we were tired as it was our first night there and we needed sustenance! The opera turned out to be Pagliacci which we had heard of. The music, stage, costumes and performance were all very good. Thankfully it was only a little over an hour and a half long because we honestly were very tired from that overnight bus journey.

Some of the beaches are within walking distance of the city centre. To get there we went via the monument to the Unknown Soldier where a “changing of the guard” ceremony was under way. It seems that military cadets honour their forebears with the boys holding on to machine guns and the girls wearing over-sized pom-poms in their hair! Then we got to the beach where the Black Sea was just too cold to swim in but the sun was strong and hot.

Other beaches are in the Arkadia district which required a tram ride to get to. We didn’t think them any better than the city beaches but guide books rate them as “swankier” and therefore things like sunbeds are more expensive to rent! The clifftop parks are worth a wander around too, with a wide variety of sanatoria buildings on view. How they used to live!!

This blog can’t finish without a mention of weddings. We saw so many in Odesa. It seems the idea is to get married on a street corner (we think that what we really saw was everyone outside the registry office) then go to the church for a blessing. After that you must visit as many of the city’s sights as possible and have wedding photos taken: at the opera house; by Pushkin’s monument; in the park; by the Greek colonnade; and of course on the so-called Mother-in-Law’s Bridge where you must also attach a sturdy lock for the safekeeping of your marriage vows. We don’t know how many wedding photos we appeared in but there were too many happy couples to count!!

So, Odesa was truly the Pearl of the Black Sea and we felt quite sad as our overnight train to Crimea trundled out of the station. On board we were surprised to find the layout was almost identical to the trains in Azerbaijan but much more modern and comfortable. Our cabin even contained a TV and Satellite decoder, not that we could understand anything that was on any of the channels. Thank God for i-pods, mp4 converters and composite cables!

---

Comments

[Ronnie Hausheer]

Happy Anniversary
Happy 15th! Thinking of you. Ronnie

[andy]

cinderella?
It's actually not cinderella but a monument to oranges that played a significant role in establishing Odessa as a city. In fact, these oranges were sent by local Odessa dwellers to Russian czar as a bribe, which resulted in large governmental investment in Odessa's construction :)

[SmarRents]

Need an apartment?
Hi! Next time you can get an apartment for daily rent. I can support you in this.