After leaving Sevastopol in a blaze of
excitement and fireworks, our arrival in Yalta at 4.30
am on Sunday morning was a much more sedate affair. The
first we knew about it was when we opened our curtains
and looked around us. During our stay here, we were due
to see two major attractions; the Livadia Palace and Vorontsov's
Palace at Alupka. We have created separate pages for these
two excursions. This page contains everything else we
saw and did in Yalta.
Yalta
In the 19th century, Yalta became
a fashionable health resort and is today a popular
destination for tourists. It was granted city
status in 1883 and the governor had a road built
to link it with the Crimean capital, Simferol.
Within a few years, Yalta became the centre of
administration for the entire south coast. Villas,
nobles' palaces and hotels emerged, including
the White Palace, used by the Tsar as a summer
residence at Livadia.
Soon after breakfast, we
departed for our first excursion to the White Palace in
Lavadia (see separate page)
We returned to the ship for lunch and then went on another
excursion; this one to the Nikita Botanical Gardens (see
below)
The area immediately surrounding
the ship is a centre for holiday activity, including these
rather strange sets, where people can dress up in equally
strange costumes, nothwithstanding the heat... which was
31 degrees celcius for most of the time that we were there!
The following day (Monday),
we left shortly after breakfast for the second of our two
excursions, this time to Vorontsov's Palace at Alupka. (see
separate page). We returned to the ship for lunch and then
waited until the heat of the day had passed before going
out to explore and do a little shopping.
That evening, before dinner,
we invited a few of our fellow travellers to pre-dinner
drinks in our cabin
Above: Sandra & Bill
Above: Sue and Rosemary
The next morning was our
last morning in Yalta. We decided not to go on the optional
excursion to Checkov's house, but to use the time instead
to explore the city more thoroughly after the previous day's
half-hearted attempt. We were glad we did. We saw a lot,
including the inside of the church below (where we saw a
woman kissing icons whilst simultaneously talking on her
mobile phone), more colourful street markets and a lovely
Armenian church, which necessited a much needed hike to
get up to it.
Above: Sales of the local beer, Kvass, did not appear to
be going well
At lunch time, it was time
to leave Yalta. The ship's management team was among the
last to embark.
