Part two of our "Rest" in Crimea

the next place we went swimming after the cliffs

Last Saturday we were driving back from our vacation or rest in Crimea (all English speaking Ukrainians call it a rest, I am not sure why, many terms are British, but I think they use holiday, like we sometimes do in North America.) Right about now we stopped at a little cafe for soup and kartoshka free (french fries.)

You can see Papa Lenin right over the big horse's shoulder

In part one, camping on the cliffs, we were driving away into another rainstorm when I stopped the story. We headed into the village, past the stands we drove past a couple days before, but the fact that it was early morning and water was running down the street meant few were open for business. I took a last photo as we left town, they seem to be keeping the grass cut around their Lenin statue in a unique way, as you can see.

We drove about 85 km over to the city of Yevpatoria, where the town signs proudly proclaim it is 2500 years old. Garry manged to find his way through the city to the highway on the other side, in spite of a traffic holdup at a circle because of a train. We drove along the beach front for quite a while, we stopped there with Victor the first summer we were in Ukraine, the beach is covered with little flat stones, like river rock. 

We had decided to head to the area where we went to the beach with Stacy last year on July first, because the beach area had been so nice. On the map it looked like we could drive along the shore from the north to the city of Katcha, but it proved impossible to actually do. It was an interesting detour, we saw some vineyards, picturesque coastline- as you can see in the photo; and behind barbed wire, what looked like old defence positions along the shore. We came to a fence along the only road we could find going south, so had to return to the main highway.

Along the bumpy dirt road that turned into a fence-  

We finally did get there from the south, and Garry followed some signs to some seaside condos, where he rented one for three nights. We were on the top = 6th floor, and had a spectacular sea view from a balcony.

We ate at the seaside restaurant while we waited for the cleaning lady to clean the place before we could get the keys, a small pizza for 20 bucks, we only had tea there for the rest of the stay, I cooked on the hotplate in the little kitchen- it had a big fridge, microwave, but just a one burner hotplate, and we had pots in the car. for camping. 

After much needed showers and a nap, we set out to explore the city on foot. We talked to a tour seller who had a little English and found out that it used to be a closed city in Soviet days, and the air force base is just outside of town, she said the planes were not out that day because of the stormy weather. Kind of explained why it was so hard to get to, didn't it? We did see some fighter jet planes, helicopters and some bigger planes over the next two days. The city is proudly celebrating it's 100th anniversary this year, we just missed the circus that was there on the weekend. 

We found the Heroes Park and walked through it, there were a lot of big gold busts there.

We found a place to buy Garry a razor, enjoyed a hot deep-fried cheboroots (like a fried pies filled with cheese or meat, ours were cheese. After we got back, it rained, and it was nice to be inside a dry building instead of a wet tent! 

We did enjoy a beautiful sunset that night 

You wouldn't believe what we saw the next morning, we woke up early and I was enjoying the view of what we assumed it the city of Stevasopol to the south when I spotted a fin in the water. I called Garry to come look and we were watching dolphins for the next 15 minutes, swimming in pairs, with their fins and tails popping up in the water. There seemed to be more than one pair. 

Stevasopol in the distance that  morning

We have seen dolphins on city sign and statures in Crimea, but did not realize that they really are in the Black Sea until we saw them. People tell us it is really unusual to see them from shore, they are normally in the deep water.

Sorry I didn't grab the camera until it was all over.

We did enjoy some time on the beach, paddling around in the water on Thursday, and Thursday evening when we walked downtown we found a great place to eat shishlik.

 It was good, there was lots to eat and it was cheap. No wonder you could hardly find a place to sit.

 Garry said it reminded him of a BBQ place in the US, you went inside ordered and paid, told them your table number (which was taped to the top of plastic folding tables in a park. Then you sat on the plastic chairs until they brought your order to you, drinking whatever you bought to drink. We had Pepsi, but most people were drinking beer..or vodka and juice to chase. We ordered potatoes, but I couldn't finish mine, they were rather like scalloped potatoes. The shishlik meat was pork, a really tender, served with thin-sliced raw onions and a few tomato slices. Friday morning we headed further south, to see what we could see, and ride the cable car up Al-Petri Mountain.