We are home from our trip to Crimea with Garry's parents- if you are not familiar with the different parts of Ukraine, Crimea is south of the main part of the country and is on the the Black Sea. It is the same Crimea of the Crimean War and Stalin loaded up the native Tatar poplutation into cattle cars during WWII and sent them to Uzbekistan, many have returned to Crimea since independence. It seems that the USSR gave it to Ukraine as part of an anniversary celebration so they took it with them when they left. There is still a Russian naval base in Sevastapol (last winter they got the lease extended for 40 years I think- in a cheaper gas for Ukraine deal- natural gas is very important in this country as most people cook and many heat with it.)
Anyway we drove down there on Monday morning and after a stop in the rain to check out the dried fish for sale near the "border" (Crimea does not really have a border crossing- it is there from the old days- but it is a little like Quebec) The weather was overcast when we had lunch at a Tatar restaurant in Bachisarai- then we visited the Khan Palace, you can see Garry's mother Mary checking out the Fountain of Tears made famous in a Pushkin poem.
After visiting friends we headed toward Alupka where we had hotel resevations. We got off-course but did not realize it as Garry turned on the GPS enroute and it said we were heading to Alupka. We wereas the road twisted and turned its way over the mountains, we twisted through the yellow leaved forest, through some rain and fog, meeting the occasional car or van, we began to worry that there would not be a way down and we would have to repeat the trip. Finally we came out of the fog - and Garry made us get out and admire the view as we were on the famous scenic overlook of Yalta. It was dark before we were down, and Garry managed to find the Hotel Alupka without taking a wrong turn(an amazing feat if you knew how many turns down narrow street was involved) he had stayed there in August with Clay, one of the members of the Summer English Institute team- and it took an hour to find in daylight that first time! After a late (8 o'clock) dinner at a nearby restaurant we headed to bed.
In the morning we headed out on a walk to a nearby park after breakfast and were amazed at the view up toward the mountain! The park was full of huge (and unusual) trees, swan ponds, and was the upper grounds of the Alupka or Count Vorontsov's Palace which we also toured. Built in 1828-1848 it looks like an English castle with some some other influences including India, in some ways it was even grander than Livadia Palace that we toured in the afternoon. The blue drawing room was incredible with white stucco flowers on the blue tinted walls and gilt and white Russian Empire style funiture. We could not tour some rooms as there was a movie crew on site, we think the guys inside the front entrance (their coats read security on the back in yellow letters)were extras for the film which is a comedy set in Napoleanic times. There are three sets of lions going down the terrace which overlooks the sea.
We took a taxi back as the rain was coming down as we walked out of the grounds, and then took the taxi to Livadia Palace (the white palace in one photo) which has a large display about the Yalta conference (think WWII- Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin) and has a display about the last czar and his family who built and used this palace as their summer residence. We also toured the palace church.
After lunch at a lovely (and expensive)Ukrainain-style restaurant, we had the taxi take us down to the Yalta waterfront where Garry's mom got her feet wet in the Black Sea, and we all got wet as the rain came down a little later - we headed into Mc Donald's where they enjoyed coffee and we all had raspberry pies. The sun came back out and we worked our way back up the embankment and finished the afternoon with a stop at the Swallow's Nest castle - the taxi dropped us right by the back gate.
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