Alushta was the right decision for me to choose for a longer rest at the sea, even I did not really use all possibilities Alushta offered to me:
You can go clubbing
Mountain biking in the mountains
Swimming ;-)
Diving
Climbing
Kayaking
...
Or just sit at the sea and watch the small ladies, when they are playing their roles as adults.
Gunnar from the hostel KRM arranges every Fr/Sa/Su some concerts at the roof of the hostel. Which os pretty cool, as it offers a good alternative to the mainstream sound, which is played in the clubs of the town.
On Friday there played a nice Hip-Hop combo from Kiev, in the video you can see Gunnar.
On Saturday afternoon there were quite heavy rains, but some brave people were not interested too much in the rain, they still enjoyed to stay at the beach.
On Saturday, there was a Rockabilly band playing, which was also fun!
Micha, Natalia and some other guys
Oleg dancing like hell...
Sunday I decided to meet Olekg and Micha from the diving center cdp.in.ua, which was definitely a good decision - even I didn't dive for more than 10 years.
By the way, did you know that seasonal workers here in Crimea are earning around 1,5 € an hour?
Simferopol is a bigger town located in southern Crimea, which has a charming flair. It is build very spacious, like most of the Ukrainian towns I met so far. When you are in this town, you can feel that it is a Tartarian city, cause there are many mosques not only churches.
Ukraine seems to be a good area for elder movie and music stars... not only David Hasselhoff found here new jobs as Baywatch hero, also my favorite artist Thomas Anders is still appreciated here - Great, isn't it?
Cycling from Simferopol to Alushta means to climb he mountains of the Crimea. hey were really nice looking. I was lucky to cycle in this direction, cause the climb was quite easy and took me only 1.5 hours - so nothing special.
I mentioned already in another post the beautiful women of the Ukraine. Yes they are sexy! And not only they are sexy, also the products they make advertising for are getting sexy - doesn't matter if it are cars or sausages.
Here we go Alushta - it was the first time for me swimming in the sea (in this trip) - and not too bad ;-) The water is very clear, the beaches are stone beaches, so luckily no sand, which gets stuck in all slots...
In the evening I was hanging around on the roof of the hostel I stayed. From there you are having an amazing view over Alutscha. Nice people from Russia I met there, like Evgeniy and his girlfriend from Moskow.
Even the people are great, and the view from the roof of the hostel is perfect, I have to complain about something in the hostel. I am sharing my room with two ladies and are forced to take showers with them... but as I am also willed to save the nature I accepted it.
The place is called KRM hostel and located in the city centre of Alushta - the staff is anazingly friendly and the prices are great! => You can book via hostelworld or booking.
This song is dedicated for all the people who are suffering under their fellow human beings...
The morning I started from Kherson, I had to fix the bike before I could continue. Everything went fine - I've been at the bike shop around 9.30 am and got helped immediately, 15mins later I was on the road again.
If you are planning such a trip, make sure you have your own spare parts with you! In the shop they only had 26" spokes but no 28" ones. As I was prepared for such complications everything went well.
One more sentence about the amazing friendly gentleness of Ukraine people - check out the comments from the post of July 20th. There Andrew from Mykolaiv recommended a person in Cherson who would be able to help me - isn't this great?
=> Thanks Andrew!
Compared to Romania and Bulgaria, Ukraine is a much cleaner country. On the roads towards the Crimea people were collecting litter.
Somewhere in the nowhere I met a hitch hiker from Kiev, who also gave his best to come to the seaside of the southern Crimea.
All on the way southern you could find small stalls, where people were offering fresh fruit and vegetables from their fields.
That night I did not interpret the signs correctly, which lead in wet clothes... Instead of setting up the tent immediately, I cooked and was relaxing ;-)
In the morning after heavy rains the sky looked like this. I really love it to get up early after a night in the tent.
That day I was mainly cycling and stopped only to buy water and food, except his time, where I recognized this nice transportation of living animals.
I met another crazy guy from Minsk, Belarus with whom I cycled 2-3 hours.
That time the clouds had a different shape, maybe it was caused from the heavy winds... Did you know, that not winds coming from the front are most annoying for cyclists? It's really horrible when they are coming from the right - than you need to be very careful with the traffic - anyhow it's a good concentration exercise to make sure you are not crashing into trucks ;-)
The good act of the day ;-) A drunk guy waiting at a bus stop fall down and was laying at the street... I took him, sat him down and gave him some water - and yes he even knew some English words "Thank you very much" he told me. I hope he got somehow home in his bed without further injuries.
Did I mention already, that I prefer to swim in lakes and rivers than in the sea?
Therefore I was so happy to meet two Germans yesterday morning, who know Ukraine, and Kherson quite well. Christian and his son Fred from Landsberg near Munich invited me, to join them to the beach of Kherson very close to the city center.
We were the only tourists, many families were there and it was great: The atmosphere, the water, the clouds... just everything!
30 minutes left until I will go to fix my bike and could continue the trip hopefully. Have a wonderful week out there!
Finding out from Odessa was less complicated than expected. Thanks to my Garmin ;-)
I use it just in case when I am not sure about directions and especially for finding out of greater cities. I would recommend you to get the cheapest Garmin available and to use openstreetmaps instead of buying any maps. But I personally recommend to use open source not only on GPS systems since years - but that's every ones decision.
On the way towards Crimea I passed some war monuments and heroic war statues from 2nd world war.
And many Churches... This one was somehow special, that's why I'm sharing it with you.
When I saw this cute small cat I thought about taking it with me. It was only some weeks old and therefore its appetite would have been probably pretty small. But when I had a closer look at its ears and underside I recognized, that this little wildlife animal hat a lot of lice and acarians. => SO no thanks, little pussycat.
That evening I stayed at a small fjord, and yes it was the first time I tried to swim in saltwater on this trip. But somehow it didn't work out in this muddy water...
At least it was the most beautiful place so far for camping.
Next morning when I woke up, sheep and cows were around the tent.
The sheepherder and I had a small conversation as good it was possible. The day before I met an Israeli guy, hitchhiking towards Crimea - he and I came up with the fact, that people in Ukraine are not so friendly and not smiling too much. Yes they are not smiling too much - maybe, but they are amazingly friendly!
This guys were protesting against the government allowing them to position American military bases in Ukraine for doing warfare like in Afghanistan or Syria. It seemed somehow funny to me, but I understand their position.
These guys I met in Mykolaiv. Very nice and friendly sportsmen. We had a long chat about different topics and changed email addresses afterwards.
21 kms before Kherson three of my spokes broke => thanks to the wonderful roads here. Now I had a serious problem, cause I couldn't unlock the cassette - anyhow I made it with the help of Roman who worked at a petrol station to fix at least two of the broken strokes. Now I am sitting in Kherson having no idea if I should wait one more night to go to a bike shop to unfix the cassette and fix the last stroke or to continue. But maybe the answer will arise during the night...
Some old military helicopters were next to the road 1km before Kherson.
This song is from my point of view very special, I think you guess right => Porcupine Tree "Octane Twisted" => If you're annoyed of the music I am sharing with you, please let me know, than I will stop it.
Yes, yesterday I unfortunately made it to reach the Black Sea. There fore I had to start around 7am in the morning. After one hour cycling I reached a trucker cafe, where I had breakfast. It's really funny how living one month abstinent from too much food and doing almost daily sports changes the needs and the pleasure about simple things. The breakfast I got was two eggs with 3 huge pieces of extremely fat bacon - and believe me, it was great to have such a meal for breakfast!
At the truck stop there was a pheasant - now you are able to have a close look at this nice animal.
After almost 100 km cycling I almost did it.
And here we go, the first suburbs of Odessa. The area of this town, where 1 million people are living is really huge, so it took a while to find a place where to stay. But who seeks will find!
In the evening I had a small walk to the seaside and was trying to breathe the flair of the city.
Beside nice churches I saw, very stylish trams, which makes you feel being back in the USSR.
These spikes are really everywhere. Even in Odessa, so nothing special war monuments like in Berlin, Paris, => same shit than everywhere ;-)
Dried or smoked fish is very famous in Russia, I knew that already, but obviously in Ukraine as well. Some of the fish looked like small belugas - maybe you can see it if you are zooming in.
And here we go, crowded beaches...
And Mr. Davis Hasselhof's working place.
But not only the hipster and stylish people in their teen and twen ages have the possibility to present them selves, also about the very small ones was taken care a professional way, so that the moms and dads could enjoy them selves.
Today was dedicated to get the Visa for Russia. It took me a while to find somebody who knew where the Russian embassy was. And the two maps I had were no help at all, cause the streets were written in it in Latin language and all road signs in Cyrillic. And also Google Maps did not know the address from the embassy ;-) And really almost no one was speaking a word English - which made it quite complicated to find the way.
Anyhow after a while I found it, now I am sitting in a cafe and waiting until 3pm when I hopefully get my passport back with the Visa. Costs for Germans to get a Russian Visa in Odessa the same day are US$ 91 - could anybody tell me, what the hell they want with US$?
Beside trying to get the Visa I also had a look at the city itself - as my maps are totally crap and I couldn't find a tourist office so far, cause no policeman is speaking English I couldn't tell you in detail what is shown on the pictures.
Here is a church.
Here something like maybe a theatre or maybe something else - but it looks great, isn't it?
The same building just from an other direction.
And then I went to the beach again, this time to the real hot spot where the party will go on during weekends and nights. I didn't like this place too much, cause in each single cafe they were playing horrible music, and the beaches itself were too crowded for me to feel comfortable - so in that case my theory might be right, that beaches are mainly something for idiots... but aren't all of us when we are honest to ourselves at least sometimes idiots?=> ok but Saint Moritz is similar to Saint Tropez, and Sölden/Ischgl to Ballermann therefore forget it. But I will tell you something about the bad sides I saw in Odessa so far.
The prices in the bars and restaurants at the beach had almost the same level than in Germany, even Ukraine is more poor. But the hipsters here are spiraling the prices with their excessive way of living and partying. And that's good from their point of view, cause if it would be cheap it would be totally worthless, I guess.
Anyhow I think from party point of view this place is probably comparable to Ibiza or Majorca, even I have never been there before and it might be even better and/or cheaper.
Maybe I will try out tonight and write a statement, just to provide you with good information of course!
Yes, Yes, Yo => After one hour waiting, and some arguing I have my Visa, with 2 possible entries into Russia!
I had to pay now 75 € for the Invitation letter and 91 US$ for the Visa itself. No idea if this is cheap or not, but this are the facts ;-)
It was very interesting for me to sit in the embassy and look at the people:
some of them were frustrated, cause the people working there had a lot of to complain about their visa forms,
other were totally desperate, cause their visa was refused
some were humorous about such bureaucracy
others were just pissed
so nice experience ;-) when you got a positive feedback. But I assume foreigners are having exactly the same experience when they are visiting a German embassy.
Now relaxing could start... Metallica Orion
Ok no real party report, but many good things about this city: Following the shore North Eastern from the Ballermann spot you find really nice places at the beach to hang out. In this area you find as well great bars and restaurants in chilly atmosphere producing less noise and giving this town an amazing flair. I was just sitting in a nice bar, where I had one beer.
I spontaneously decided to stay one night longer in Odessa to discover it a further and here we go with some more pictures.
Odessa was an old Greece settlement 5-3 centuries bc. You could visit places like this as well. And one interesting possibility is to visit catacombs from the 2nd world war, but to do so you should at least book one day in advance - cause the catacombs are 30min driving distance away from the town.
Poor guy, he has to carry so much...
Conclusion about Odessa:
I think Odessa is truly worth to visit! As it has for everyone something
- which most other cities might not have (party zone, beaches, old
buildings, very old history, stylish alternative spots, a lot of
beautiful girls, ...) But do it better sooner than later! Right now there is a lot of construction going on in this town - so they are preparing themselves for big tourism, which means higher prices. Right now you can still explore something special. Transportation is a bit annoying in town, cause of heavy traffic, buses and trams are no real alternative, cause they are using the same lane as the cars. With bicycle it is pretty fast. So take your bike and enjoy this town!
