Yalta - Of Castles, McDonalds and Just Chillin'

 (I'll edit this and make the pictures the right way around, once I am not being hung on by two dependent humans..) Our next port of call was Yalta itself. Keep in mind, as my dear husband did since I kept reminding him, I had been to Yalta once before – 15 years ago. Wow – a lot has changed, and yet nowhere near as much as I had hoped or expected. If they really want to attract tourists (other than Russians) they need to renovate, develop a service culture, and stop being corrupt. Hey – it could happen… So there are examples of famous architecture, and also examples of more familiar architecture (photo of McDs food.) The central area of Yalta is a sweeping expanse of concrete boardwalk. There are hawkers and buskers and strollers and rides and kiosks, hotels and cruise ships, and lots of variety. We had a nice walk, despite the gloomy weather.


We headed back in the direction of our hotel, stopping at the scenic overlook for a brief break in the clouds, which let us shoot a photo of the harbor in all of its majesty. We then stopped at the ??? Castle, which unfortunately contained no princesses. Since our kids were small, we opted out of the tour since I was afraid the little “destructor” would trash the 18th century furnishings, or run amok, as she is wont to do. So we toured the gardens and took some photos again of the coastline. Everyone was getting tired, so we ate dinner, headed to the hotel, and set off the next morning for the quick drive back to Simferopol. The only hiccup was the damage to the car we had to pay for. I argued (it ended up being about $50) but in truth, we did bounce the back bumper as we made a 270 degree turn straight down to get to our hotel. So there was a scratch, albeit under the car. Not a good ending, but the flight was easy and we were back in Kyiv in time for dinner, and our dear teenage son had neither burned down the house nor appeared to have a party, although I’m still suspicious on that last point…