More Goings On in Crimea

SIMFEROPOL: Yesterday we were supposed to go to Sudak. We got up really early, went to the central bus station and then made an enquiry upon which the bus station attendant yelled some things, confounded my elementary Russian, wrote some things on paper and then a kindly Russian lady came around and said some more things, pointed a little and then we walked outside confused. The gist of it seemed to be that there were no buses to Sudak. Disappointed, we would not be defeated though, and instead we got on the first bus to Bakachasary to visit Chufat-Kale and Khan's Palace.

Khan's Palace is a moderately interesting mosque complex that Catherine the Great spared destruction because she found it romantic. It was also imortalised by Pushkin. It was also shut but we managed to sneak in a back gate and none of the maintenance works seemed to mind our presence so we pottered around. A little underwhelmed we continued up the road to a small monastery that has been built into the side of a cliff. We stopped for lunch and Jacqui took her turn reading "the book" and came across a small reference to a second bus station from whence buses to Sudak departed. The penny collectively dropped as we suddenly understood everything the two women had been trying to tell us.

Our spirits lifted we continued up a winding, stone track to Chufut-Kale, one of Crimea's famous cave cities. We spent most of the afternoon perched across this enormous rocky outcrop with breathtaking views of the barren valleys beneath us. You can scramble in and out of various homes, climbing up weathered staircases, looking out of cliffside windows into the valley hundreds of metres below. There are even a couple of tombs to be visited. Again these are stunning vistas whose magnificence can't be conveyed in five minutes of snatched internet time on the way to dinner. (The Uzbek restaurant again!) I'll post pictures at some stage. We got back to Simferopol safe and sound and ate the worst dinner since we've been away. (Not the Uzbek place!)