Azov Sea part two

Somewhat discouraged by the cool wet weather we talked about what to do next. I mentioned that we always see a billboard near Melitopol on the way home from Crimea for a place called "the Stone Grave" in English, and we've never checked it out. Garry looked at it on the internet and agreed it looked interesting, it is a UNESCO World Heritage site. I thought we could even sleep in our own bed that night, although Garry said that we weren't supposed to be back until Friday and it was only Wednesday.

 We headed back down the coast and decided to check out the other big resort city we bypassed, Primorsk (sea is mor-ray in Russian) as we drove closer to the shore we drove past several sanatoriums and resorts (they are almost the same thing, Ukrainians say they go to the sea for a rest) We stopped to check out one with colorful camel statures in front and ended up staying the night.

our room

dinnertime, sailor suits on the chair backs on the porch

beautiful gardens (our room was on the 3rd floor of the building behind me)

there was a "zoo" of birds- pheasants and peacocks

we tried out some exercise equipment

 The room was a little basic, with twin beds but we enjoyed an afternoon relaxing on the beach reading and watching the seagulls in lounge chairs (under blankets when the wind picked up) and the meals were all you could eat. Garry really enjoyed the breakfast omelet the next morning.





















Thursday we continued on under cloudy skies, taking a detour along a sunflower field to see if it went all the way to the sea. It did not as you see.

There's a village down there!

 Another detour so Garry could show me the beach where he went on the Saturday  before the VBS camp with Hannes, Andrei and tall Max. It was pretty empty with the weather and school starting.

I wasn't sure how they found the beach here

beach front cottage, anyone?

We found the historic site, even though the GPS died before we got there, the signage from the highway was easy to follow, and in both Ukrainian and English, which was a nice surprise, we often use the GPS for finding things. We enjoyed climbing on and exploring the pile of rocks, even if we didn't see any petroglyphs.

Sign says beware of snakes, we climbed up where those people are too

almost petroglyphs....

The admission was less than we paid to see things in Crimea, we got in for 20 grivna each plus five or ten for camera use, and then another  5 each to tour the museum, really a room of displays in the museum. (Still 8 grivna in a US dollar, so a good deal, we even bought a book, since it was in three languages, including English about the place.)

walking up to the museum- it was smaller inside

There was a timeline of people in the area

display in the museum of inside one of the crevasses 

We had a roadside picnic on the way home, so a real Ukrainian holiday!

Ate some of the "camping supplies"