Weekend Getaway

I went and promised more regular entries and then proceeded to go silent for several days. I’m kind of a jerk that way. I had a good reason though. I went out of town to do a little traveling with the wife and her visiting parents. We decided to go to Crimea.

The Crimean Peninsula juts into the Black Sea and has quite a history as well as a rather unique place in current Ukrainian politics. The landscape is beautiful, much like what I imagine Greece looks like. The language of the streets is definitely Russian and Americans aren’t overly popular as evidenced by grafitti saying things like “NATO - NO!” and “Crimea is Russia.”

We were gone for about three days and I would rate the vacation as a B-. We had four primary destinations: Bakchiserai, Sevastopol, Yalta, and Sudak. If it hadn’t been for Sudak, I think the vacation would have been firmly in the C range. Part of the problem was that we made a classic travelers blunder, we didn’t allow enough time for the actual travel part. Therefore, we spent a good chunk of the weekend in various taxis (mostly Ladas) and minibuses. We should know better by now.

I don’t have any pictures uploaded yet, but I’ll try to get some in the near future or I’m sure Patchwork Planet will provide them. Here is the quick rundown of the trip.

Bakchiserai

Hot as hell. In the mountains and historic homeland of the Crimean Tatars. We saw the Khan’s Palace and hiked up to Uspensky Monastary. The Palace is decent if you have never been to Istanbul, but sort of pales in comparison otherwise. The Monstary was interesting, but a tiring hike up the mountain and they only allowed you to see about two rooms.

Sevastopol

Everyone says that Yalta is way overdone and too crowded so I thought I was being pretty clever by getting us a hotel in Sevastopol instead. The problem was the quaint guest house I booked our rooms in was in the middle of absolutely nowhere and required constant taxis to see anything. Sevastopol had a pretty little waterfront, but it didn’t take very long to see everything. Compared to Kyiv, the servers at the restaurants were remarkably friendly.

Yalta

We just did a quick stop in Yalta before heading on to Sudak. It was a two hour bus ride from Sevastopol, a quick stroll along the boardwalk and lunch, then a 3.5 hour bus ride to Sudak. It was a long day. I caused quite a commotion at the bus station when I asked a taxi driver if he knew where Celantano Pizza was (a popular chain in Ukraine.) He gathered about a dozen other taxi drivers together and they discussed. In the end, he said he did know and would drive us there. Instead he took us to the main boardwalk and just dumped us out. We went to McDonalds. The beach in Yalta is fully of cheesy rides and wall-to-wall Russians in Speedos.

Sudak

Sudak was quite a bit further off the beaten tourist path in Crimea and involved some nauseating switchback driving through the mountains to get there. It was definitely worth it though. The town seemed to have a nice little downtown area with lots of shops. Our hotel was a sprawling complex scattered across several buildings, but with lots of character. Best of all, Sudak is crowned by a large, 14th century Genoese fortress and our hotel rooms were right at the base. Jennifer and I got to scramble around the grounds and climb the walls. I even dressed up in some arm and did my best “storming the castle” impression. (Pictures sure to be forthcoming.) All in all, a fun time was had. Our only lament was that we spent too much time driving around and in Sevastopol that would have been better spent in Sudak and the surrounding area.