Crimea is a paradise but only without service
Get ready for a long and informative story; )
Before we had time to arrive, as already on the train, intermediaries began to catch us and offer housing, in general, not persistently, only to those who asked. First, they ask what you want and how much we expect. We voiced $25, offered for $35, bargained for $30. Since there were a lot of people, the season did not want to end, and, accordingly, housing prices were higher, if we had arrived 3-4 days later, we would have already rented for $ 20-25. Just housing. Private mini hotel, a small 2-storey building next to an ordinary residential building. 3 rooms and a large kitchen for all. The room has a large bed, air conditioning, a bathroom, a wardrobe and a refrigerator (ours personally! - as there were no other rooms - only downstairs in the common kitchen). Everything is clean and tidy, but it's certainly not 5 *. There was always water, but since the gas column was at the bottom, the hot water periodically disappeared, since the column was rotten, it was necessary to turn on the water again under full pressure to catch fire. But we got used to it pretty quickly.
The hostess, of course, is still the same businesswoman, but quite a pleasant, pretty woman, very friendly and cheerful. Immediately we got rid of a pass to the sanatorium beach for free from departing residents. True, we were asked to wait 4 hours to have time to clean the room. Since nothing seemed to cause suspicion, we left all the things on a turn-key basis with the hostess in the garage and went for a walk.
The heat was scalding, all +45 in the shade. We walked to the city beach, it stank of hydrogen sulfide, algae in the water a meter per meter and garbage. Therefore, we immediately decided that this beach was not to our taste. Although the beach there is sandy everywhere, they built an embankment and covered it with pebbles. So you walk in the water for a couple of meters and you are on a pleasant sand.
The city itself is not bad, clean, tidy, the buildings in the center have been restored. Once we tried to walk further into the city, found out that only the central embankment has civilization. My beloved man caught a bad cold, so we practically did not leave the room for 3 days, and were incredibly happy that we had all the conditions, especially the air conditioner!
Our first excursion happened spontaneously and unexpectedly. We went to the Toplovsky convent (350 rubles for two), the only convent in the entire Crimea. It is located in the mountains, somewhere in an hour's drive from Feodosia. It is amazingly beautiful there, we walked along the path deep into the forest for about 30 minutes and there we swam in a font in which the water temperature is +5 all year round. According to the words, the water there is life-giving, holy, heals from diseases, helps to get pregnant, and so on. There are 3 holy springs, all different and named differently. People go there from all over the world. I recommend it to both young and old, it will not take much time, but the feeling of peace and balance and complete calmness are felt immediately.
The next excursion was to Sudak - the New World (for two, in my opinion, 1500r). Here we were terribly unlucky with the guide. Such…. urban crazy…. everything was running around with us like a chicken with chickens, don’t go there... the snow will fall on your head completely dead buish!....we are adults... we need to tell, not educate. It turned out that we were everywhere at a gallop across Europe, so we periodically fought back from her and walked around ourselves.
We drove through Koktebel, beautiful and cool, though fleetingly, but we really liked it. They just said that housing there is much more expensive. We drove through Sudak, a boring, densely populated city with sparse vegetation (didn't like it). We got to the Genoese fortress. This is a miracle of miracles, many preserved buildings from the 13th century, competent restorers are immediately noticeable. Too bad it hasn't been fully restored. And then it was possible to arrange all sorts of shows and tournaments and attract Western investors.
But the fortress was remembered not only for the buildings of the 13-14th century, stunning views of the sea, but also for something else. When we were descending from the hill, clouds came from somewhere and huge drops almost knocked our eyes out and did not tear off our ears! We went nuts and decided that this is the end of the world! As luck would have it, I wanted to write, in short, this rain with hail almost blew dry closets. We rushed to the bus like crazy wet chickens with fear of screwing up (I lost my slippers a couple of times) and fearing that our spine would break. After the bus collected all the wet chickens, it moved on. We rode like Turkmen shuttles! The whole bus is hung with pants, T-shirts, towels and shorts! All this flowed down on us, but it didn’t bother anyone, but the sensations were indescribable... such an adventure)))) and we survived)))))
When we arrived in the New World, the scorching sun crept out! We had a little time to swim on the beach... there were almost no people after the rain... there were shawarma, pizza and milkshakes all around....and of course wine. We decided to explore the beach. Despite the beauty of nature, the beach disappointed me. Huge boulders when you enter the water and the darkness of algae that wrap around your legs... bbbrrr... I love the sand.
In general, according to the schedule, the trail of Count Lev Golitsyn was on schedule. In short, this is a set of a mountain range with such peculiar steps that are polished by the feet of tourists and wet with rain. In general, you walk around and it’s beautiful all around....and you walk like a dumbass and look at your own legs so as not to fall face down or fall off the cliff and fly like a doll tumbler down into the sea! But nevertheless, we got a lot of pleasure, we saw a place where the great people of that time rested, where they kept wine, where Chaliapin seemed to sing, where they bathed in a green bay and breathed in a juniper grove. Next time we'll go there without a tour and enjoy it without skipping after the aunt.
A separate story is a serpentine! These kamikaze drivers rushing along the road with wild turns are something! There were moments when we rushed along the road a millimeter from the cliff. In general, we had an adrenaline rush of a year's norm, we were glad that we returned home alive . To our question about whether there were accidents among tourists, the aunt answered NO with a squeal. Everyone concluded that they were still there and back our neighbors drank wine without checking their faces)))
At the great desire of my man, we bought a horseback ride (700 rubles for two), since he has 6 years of riding experience... I have zero! But I was terribly interested and no fear. It started with the fact that they were late to come for us... we waited for 20 minutes . . we thought everything was already... we were bred by scammers... we were already going to beat the aunt who sold us tickets. But then alleluya (! ), a miracle of miracles arrived... how did she even get this tarantaska !! ! The driver is friendly, reeking of horses (well, or poop - whichever you prefer) and posing as a Formula 1 racer, a swarthy dude. In general, badly poor, we arrived. Of course, we were promised a forest which is not even there. But it's not scary. They chose horses for us and we, with the dog guide Rogue (a dog with a cunning face) and our escorts, moved along the hills to the sea. My horse's name was Jack, my man's horse was Zvezdochka. Everything is fine... they came to the sea, hung out there and moved back. At some point, we were given twigs in our hands and told that if you want to gallop, you can lightly hit the croup. As soon as I had time to think that I didn’t want to poop at a gallop at all, my man, as they say, “whistled and flew away” and my Jack took this as a guide to action and rushed to overtake Zvezdochka without asking me! In general, my hair almost came off, my boobs (pardon the expression) almost flew behind my back and my butt squealed from the blows of the saddle! Well, at least I was smart enough to look at my beloved and see that he put his legs in the stirrups and got up, I did the same....the priest stopped screaming, but the boobs also jumped on the back !! ! This bastard began to pull on the bridle, but only slowed down a bit... in general, we rode almost to the farm and I realized that it seemed that all parts of the body were in place. And the most interesting thing is that I did not let go of the twig from my hands !! ! But he prevented me from holding on! ! Well…. . I grabbed another dose of adrenaline)))) We wrote a review in the diary of the horse farm, took pictures of local dogs and horses, watched a small impromptu show with horses and went back cheerfully.
Okay, let's skip the ride and move on to the pleasant moments. The tour guide this time was amazing. We drove through Simferopol many more historical places with a detailed interesting story about everything and arrived at the Nikitsky Botanical Garden. There is a beautiful and huge territory, although most of the plants have already faded. It’s just a pity that everything is fenced, on many trees it says “Vasya was here”, etc.... you people are barbarians, why spoil where you live ? ! They also saw a pool in which they filmed a tortilla turtle... bought some souvenirs and rushed on. We arrived at the Alupka park. There certainly is not such a stormy vegetation, but it is also beautiful. The eyes did not have time to be surprised at everything and absorb everything that they saw. Then they came to the Vorontsov Palace, what a miracle of creation of great architects!! ! This is the nephew of Catherine II, a handsome man according to portraits, otherwise in those days everyone was forever some kind of toad-like. There, all the furniture has been preserved and the paintings of the great masters and even the wallpaper have not been changed !! ! We wandered around the palace and it seemed that a lady in a long puffy dress and a man in a camisole were about to come out!
One facade looks at Mount Ai-Petri, and the second at the sea, made in completely different styles. After that, we went down to the pier and loaded into the parahodik....we went 10 cm away from the guide and eagerly absorbed everything that we were told. True, my man dozed off from fatigue, and I listened carefully.
We drove through Alupka, Miskhor (we saw a monument to a mermaid with a shiny butt and head rubbed with the hands of swimmers), saw the Livadia, Massandra Palace and several temples on the coast and arrived in Yalta. I fell in love with Yalta. Fairy-tale nature… lush vegetation… mountains all around… awesome embankment… and lots of places for entertainment! We were scared by the fact that it is very expensive there, but next time we will definitely go to the south coast, we will see for ourselves whether it is expensive or not.
These excursions were enough for us and we decided to spend the last two days in Feo on the beaches and buying souvenirs. They brought clay, sea salt... a clay mask from the city of Saki (I tried it - just superb! )... various herbal teas and a lot of all sorts of souvenirs... and of course cognac and wine... homemade and packaged.
To be honest, I didn’t want to leave, it’s so calm and good there... complete peace....Yes, and the places have not yet looked at everything, in general I am delighted. We want more and already on the car. So I advise everyone, but rather not in Feo, but on the south coast.