Baklava – Yalta

The town of Baklava was home to a secret submarine base. It was hidden until the 90’ies when it became public knowledge. Of course I wanted to visit this place.

The little town lies in a nice little bay.

Of course there are plenty of tourist traps.

I had a quick stroll before I went ahead to the ticket office for the submarine base. Now, it is an understatement to say that they don’t have english tourists as their main clientele and all signs are therefor in Russian making it very confusing for me. They have 3 different tours. They each follow a different path and visit different areas of the submarine base. They also have different starting times, from what I could tell. I wanted the middle option, not the longest, not the shortest. But for the life of me I could not figure out when it would start. So when it was my turn to order the ticket, the lady made a big sigh and refused to make any effort to communicate with me in English. She was not friendly at all. Not surprising since she was stuck in a tiny ticket booth in the summer sun. On top of that she was a very heavy individual which would probably mean that sailing the sweat of her armpits would make many sailors abandon ship. Anyhow, I tried to point at her sign, saying route two (I know two in Russian, so that was not the problem) but she yabbered something back to me. I just gave her the money, but no ticket in return. So I was clueless. The people behind me didn’t seem to want to help me either. So there I was, willing to pay money, yet, unable to get what I wanted. She just could have given me any ticket and a time, and I would have taken it. But no, she made no effort at all. So frustrated I left without a ticket. Screw that, I don’t need to see your stinkin’ submarine base… was what was going through my mind.

Ah well, can’t see it all can we. There are some mountains surrounding the bay, and it looked like there was a little track running up to one of the hills, so I decided to have a look. On the top you had a really nice view of the surroundings which made up for my lack of a submarine base tour.

I continued the dirt track and was soon on my way towards Yalta, a major tourist town in Crimea. Before getting there there was a nice monastery in the hills that attracted many visitors.

Yalta is best known for it’s ‘crows nest’. A tiny little castle that someone built on the edge of a cliff.

It even made the cover of a national geographic magazine issue.

I was however not very impressed with it at all. Too many tourists, and the castle is pure disney land material. Nothing real historic about it and well, let’s be honest. It is small. Sometimes size does matter, and when talking about castles… it matters.

Basically it is a tourist trap. There are tons of souvenir stands on the way. It is the only place where you have to pay for parking alongside the road. I still doubt if the parking officials are official and not some random guys pinning a badge to their shirt and printing some tickets on their home printer.

On to the next item to see in Yalta, at least for me, and that is the Druzbah holiday centre. A rather strangely looking hotel that I find rather cool. I had a swim at its beach.

But of course, very considerate tourists that want other tourists to experience what they had to drink earlier on. How kind of them…

Now, I did not visit Yalta itself. It screamed ‘tourist trap’ from all corners of the town. So I left it for what it was. Some things are better left to the imagination anyway. The area surrounding the town is basically mountainous. You have a plateau that suddenly ends and before the land touches the sea, you have all these holiday towns. So I decided to head for the plateau. The road was nice and twisty and many hairpin curves where necessary to make it to the top. There I noticed some massive radio telescopes that I wanted to check out. Unfortunately a big sign saying ‘no entry’ so I had to rest my quest.

I had passed a small settlement at the top of the plateau that had a few restaurants. I decided to try one out. Luckily the menu came with pictures and I pointed at the grilled skewers that looked mighty delicious. The girl asked me something but I did not understand. Then she made the sound of two animals… Oink oink… or Meeeh meeeeh. AAaah, pork or lamb. I replied… Meeeeh meeeh, and so my order was completed.

The food was very basic but very nice indeed. But definitely overpriced for Ukranian standards. It is obvious that they expect tourists from Yalta visiting and having lunch or diner there. Ah well, can’t blame them.

I saw many dirt tracks leading away from the main road, so I decided to go explore a bit. There were some rocks and a sign blocking entry to one of them, but hey, I can’t read russian or ukrainian. I’m sure it says no cars allowed, but dirt bikes, just squeeze through and enjoy…sort of.

So off I went and soon I was rewarded with stunning views on the edge of the plateau. But it was damn chilly. Lots of wind that would make walking on the edge an even more risky business than it already is when there is no wind at all. But stunning.

I think this is Yalta, or it could be the next town.

It was getting dark fast and I decided to look for a place to camp. There was noone around and there were plenty of places to pitch my tent. I wasn’t too late either because before I knew it I was amongst the clouds. What looked like a lovely sunset turned into fog as soon as the sun had set.