Getting out and About

The last week has been really full on but we'll try and fill you in a bit....
After a hasty recovery from third degree sunburn we decided to head up the coast from Yalta to visit some of the sights it is famous for. Alupka Palace was the first of these, a beautiful place between huge mountains and the Black Sea. We almost got trampled by the masses of coach tourists though.
From Alupka we headed down to Swallows nest, a small castle literally hanging off a cliff over the sea. A Count built it for his mistress in the 1800, not a bad present really.
The highlight of the day was a cable car to the top of Mount Ay-Petri the highest peak along the coast. The cable cars seemed to be in working order and the slightly nervous trip (not helped by the fact that there seemed to be no load limit as such) was well worth it when we reached the top where we ate at a Tatar restaurant. The Tatars are an Ethnic group originating from Turkey who were exiled during Stalin's years. They are only just returning now and aren't wasting any time in setting up great kebab stands and restaurants. Oh, and selling bootleg wine. They had several kegs on a table near us which they were giving tastings from and decanting into plastic bottles for people. All of a sudden there was this huge operation to remove any sign of this little business from the front of the restaurant and sure enough a couple of minutes later along come the Militsia (yes that's what the Police are called) checking all the shopfronts for dodgy plonk.
After a busy day sightseeing we headed back to Yalta only to continue again the next day by Visiting Livadia Palace where the 1945 post war conference between Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin was held. There were a lot of great pics of the conference as well as a lot of reminders of the Palace's original purpose, as a Summer residence for the last family of Romanovs. They only got a few years in at the Palace before they were arrested and killed during the Civil War.
That afternoon we had to head on to Sevastopol by bus where we booked into our first Soviet era hotel. Hmm, more on that later.
Photos: Swallow's nest, Adam looking cool at Alupka Palace, The place where we had lunch (note the Militsia out front), Eva looking good on Mt. Ay-Petri