So, our research defined the questions: where? when? how to go? and what is there besides the sea? We started with our native country, then examined the seas of foreign lands, and it turned out to be a real journey beyond three seas, albeit not in the footsteps of the famous Afanasy Nikitin.
Sea of Azov
As is known, Ukraine is lucky - it has two warm seas - the Azov and the Black. Let us start with the Azov. The recreation area stretches along the northern Azov region, where the steppe plain turns into resort beaches, from the most famous and well-equipped, Berdyansk and Primorsk, through Kirillovka and to Genichesk. The Sea of Azov is shallow, the beaches are sandy, often jutting far into the sea as spits. Around is steppe, by mid-June it is not yet hot, and the water has already warmed up: just the time to go with children! By train (via Zaporozhye to Berdyansk or via Donetsk to Mariupol), by bus (organized weekend trips will be offered by every second agency) or by your own car.
Who goes there? Grandmothers with grandchildren and mothers with children, school kids to camps, older people who need treatment, because before perestroika the sanatoriums of the Berdyansk Spit were an all-Union health resort. From
July, students are added. The sea and sand are the main riches of the Azov, they are good with reasonable comfort and do not require an expensive setting. Some still prefer seasonal houses, even without meals (there is a stove, the market is not far) and with amenities outside. Cheap and cheerful.
In the shallows you can surf and sail - winds are not rare here. The democratic nature of the resorts also determines the style of clothing - liberal and casual, so you should not pack a lot of things in suitcases, or better yet, instead of a suitcase take a backpack: convenient and roomy. Put cereals, stew, tea, coffee, sugar - and off you go.
A week's rest at a tourist base (Kirillovka area) with travel to the resort and back will cost 230-260 hryvnias.
On the Azov, perhaps, the most democratic resorts, although among boarding houses and tourist bases in the last couple of years private hotels have appeared with a standard set of luxury - jacuzzi, air conditioners, sauna... But what is the point of these refinements? There are still few entertainments, not many excursions, secular promenades are not the strong point of these places, and with the phrase «we rested on the Azov» you will hardly surprise your friends. But you can have a good rest: the water is warm, prices for fruits and vegetables are pleasing, and it’s not far to get there.
Black Sea
When we say «Black Sea», one immediately imagines the Southern Coast of Crimea, sometimes forgetting that the Southern Coast is not the whole Crimea, albeit the most picturesque and «promoted». Of course! Summer residences were built here not only by the last Russian tsar, his ministers and nobles...
The Yalta Conference of 1945 and the international children's recreation center «Artek» made the amazingly beautiful coast world-famous. Southern Crimea became a kind of «calling card» of the peninsula, overshadowing Eupatoria (a traditionally children's resort, where now not only children go), Feodosia and legendary Sevastopol with its pleasant surroundings for recreation.
The unique climate, developed infrastructure, a large number of natural and historical-cultural monuments interesting to guests have created a reputation for Crimea as the «main place of rest in summer». Let us make a reservation: for those who do not worry about prices for accommodation, food and excursion services. What can you do: neighboring Russians, who nostalgically remember their vacation in the all-Union health resort and were delighted by the simplified entry procedure, rushed here - and vacation became more expensive. Prices this season have risen by an average of 20 percent!
As for comfort, it varies: from prestigious boarding houses around Greater Yalta, with renovated interiors in the Empire style, to campsites and tourist bases with summer houses.
There are much more entertainments here than on the Azov, there are places to go in the evening: cafes, restaurants, casinos, bowling... Billboards with names of Russian and Ukrainian stars, festivals, contests. There are many offers for those who are not ready to guard a place on the beach all day. If you want, go to the Nikitsky Botanical Garden (the plant collection is one of the best in Europe, and adults, especially with the fashion for landscape design, and children willingly visit the garden), if you want, go to the Vorontsov Palace! Or to Bakhchisarai: there is the Khan's court with the fountain sung by the great Pushkin, and the Assumption Monastery in the rock, where just in August there is a patronal feast. Or maybe to Sevastopol, to the places of military glory and to the ruins of Chersonesos...
The price range on the Southern Coast is gigantic: from 50 hryvnias per day for a modest house in a campsite near Alushta, where the blue of the sea will make you forget about inconveniences, to 50-60 «green» in private hotels of a new generation and prestigious sanatoriums in the former summer palaces of tsarist ministers.
Steppe Crimea is somewhat cheaper, but the trends (price range and set of amenities) remain. As for the road here, both trains and flights have become several times more numerous, but queues at ticket offices and ticket shortages are a persistent tradition. And the cashiers' computers are powerless against it.
Instead of an excuse
We in no way wanted to ignore Odessa, the textbook «pearl by the sea», but beach holidays in this city with its huge port, in our opinion, are inferior to both Crimea and the Azov (and maybe we are not ready to relax in the capital of humor). We have not forgotten about the resorts of the Kherson region, in particular Skadovsk, - they just remained in the shadow of other recreation areas for a long time, and their turn for development seems to be just coming. So let's postpone the development of the local estuaries for a year or two.
Of course, we did not lose sight of the Russian coast with its well-known resorts of the Krasnodar Territory, from the children's health resorts of Anapa and Gelendzhik to the once fashionable and still respectable Sochi - it's just that our compatriots are now rarely seen there.
Almost Home Bulgaria
The same Black Sea, but from the other, western shore, in Romania and Bulgaria, and from the southern - in Turkey. True, to the Black Sea region, in northern Turkey, usually go not beachgoers, but lovers of antiquities, ancient temples and fortresses. Leading on the "other", foreign shore, as is easy to guess, is sunny Bulgaria. Flocks of charters this summer to Varna and Burgas have alarmed even the undisputed leaders of the overseas holiday market - Turkish operators, and there is an explanation for that. In the Crimea, despite progress in transport provision, despite the appearance of new hotels and major repairs of old ones, despite rising prices for services, our waiters and maids still lack cordiality and attention to customers, and Euro-renovation is not necessarily Euro-service. But Bulgarians, who are often reproached for the modesty of rooms in most hotels (at the resorts of Golden Sands and Albena, and even more so in Kranevo, Sveti Konstantin and Elena), charm with unfeigned hospitality and good cuisine at low prices.
Alas, with the introduction of visas for Ukrainians, another advantage of vacationing in Bulgaria came to naught - the principle of "got ready and went", but (to the credit of the Bulgarian consular services!) the mechanism for obtaining the right to entry was streamlined, and the flow of tourists is growing again this year, attracting some of those who previously vacationed in the Crimea and even in Turkey.
Briefly about the "private" advantages of summer in Bulgaria: you will not find tastier and cheaper local August peaches, as well as juicy tomatoes and fleshy peppers baked on a skara (as Bulgarians call the grill). Add to the good and hearty cuisine the freedom of sensations (due to the similarity of languages), the historical sympathy of Bulgarians for our compatriots (since the Battle of Shipka), the accessibility and variety of historical places for excursions (do not be lazy to go to the interior - Kotel, Zheravna, Etara, or even to Veliko Tarnovo!), a considerable choice of activities for water sports lovers - water skiing, windsurfing and yachts, not to mention riding on a "banana" and scooters, and you will understand that Bulgaria is worth visiting at least once. For those who know a thing or two about affordable European-style relaxation, but without frills, the risk of disappointment is minimal.
Return flight - $130-160, a day with breakfast - from $15 per person in a double room, and lunches and dinners in numerous restaurants and cafes - from 4-5 dollars or euros, which are accepted there more willingly.
Unfortunately, the process of rising prices for holidays in Bulgaria (as well as in our native Crimea) is inevitable. "Top" hotels being built at Bulgarian resorts by Western companies, or reconstructed old ones bought by the same companies, are unreasonably expensive. Therefore, tourists accustomed to the "all ultra-hyper-maxi-inclusive" regime, in order to avoid disappointing comparisons of "price - a set of pleasures", should not change their habit of spending summer in Turkey, or rather in Mediterranean Antalya.
Choosing Bulgaria by bus for economic reasons, you risk spending more than a day on the road home in a rather cramped bus, forgetting all the delights of the vacation, and then spend another week recovering, regretting that you didn't choose a holiday on our shore. In short, either fly, saving on the hotel, or go to Crimea, but with accommodation a class higher.
Terra incognita on the map of summer holidays
To be fair, it is worth paying attention to Romania, which our acquaintances praised ("Such prices - and quite decent! There are almost none of ours, but there are Englishmen everywhere") after ending up at one of the resorts on the way from Bulgaria to Ukraine. Alas, offers to rest there in summer on our tourist market are almost impossible to find, not to mention charters - they simply do not exist. And the main way to get there is by car. Entry visas to Romania are not needed, a voucher is enough, which, like information about hotels, can be found from Uzhgorod and Chernivtsi companies, because these regions are border areas. And if you are an independent tourist and are not afraid to explore territories "not promoted" in our country, it is worth paying attention to the resorts around Constanta, the second largest city in Romania, - Mamaia, Neptun-Olimp, Cap Aurora, Costinesti, Eforie Nord, Mangalia. Hotels at Romanian resorts, unlike neighboring Bulgaria, stand on the "first" line. They were built in the time of Ceausescu with a scale, so large rooms, a bathroom, balcony and TV are even in modest hotels. As usual at southern resorts, there are cozy coffee shops and bars, pubs and restaurants, and in Constanta - also a casino from the beginning of the 20th century.
Dinner with wine cost our acquaintances $18 for two, and a double room with breakfast in a respectable hotel - $37. True, this information is from last summer, but with high inflation of the local currency, the order of figures is unlikely to change.
In the velvet season, go for a week to Romania - original and not extravagant.
In the country of four warm seas
Leaving the Black Sea, you find yourself on the fourth sea - the Sea of Marmara. When you look at the map, it seems that the Sea of Marmara is more like a shipping route than a place for recreation. It separates the European and Asian parts of Turkey. For many of our compatriots, Turkey is an undisputed favorite on the list of summer holiday destinations. And no wonder! Pleasant climate, picturesque coastline, rich cultural heritage and a huge number of monuments of various civilizations, convenient transport routes, excellent cuisine, many hotels on the coast - far from the entire list of Turkey's advantages from the point of view of travelers. Besides the Marmara Sea, it is washed by three more seas: the Black Sea from the north, the Aegean Sea from the west, and the Mediterranean from the south.
We mentioned the Black Sea earlier. The Mediterranean coast of Turkey, it seems to us, needs no special introduction: the name of its most popular resort - Antalya - sounds to many like a synonym for the word “Turkey”, and tourists, boarding a plane to Antalya, often don't even think about which sea they are flying to. The Aegean Sea - one of our “discoveries” of last year - is undeservedly little known in this country, and we would like to tell about it specially. But to feel its “specialness”, we need an overview of the summer vacation situation in Turkey.
Antalya: What More Could You Wish For?
The exploration of the country by our vacationers began not so long ago, precisely with the Mediterranean Sea. The speed and scale of hotel construction here are impressive: tour companies don't have time to include new properties in their catalogs for the season. Over the past five to seven years, the resort area around Antalya has expanded many times over, turning small villages and fishing settlements - Kemer, Belek, Alanya, Side - into tourist centers.
Most Antalya hotels are club hotels with the notorious “all-inclusive” system, and although there are many interesting places and ancient monuments around, hotel guests rarely leave their territory - it is paid for, so it must be used. Between breakfast, lunch, afternoon snack, and dinner, you cannot escape the hotel for long, except maybe for rafting and a couple of standard excursions. Competition provides a fairly high level of service; hotels increasingly have a full set of stars. Having settled in, tourists become honorary guests of the resort and go there year after year. Few people risk looking for new vacation options - let well enough alone.
Two weeks for two in popular five-star club hotels (Kemer area) will lighten your wallet by 1,500-2,000 “conventional units”, but the “all-inclusive” regime allows you to leave your wallet at home. Guests of such hotels can eat and drink without limits, whatever their heart desires, do as much sport as they like, sweat in the sauna or bask in the hammam, get massages and have their hair done! For those who count calories or don't like sitting in one place for too long, such a “package” is useless: ask for a half-board tour - you will save about 25 percent, or even more!
If you are going to choose Antalya with its “all-inclusive”, then you should choose it so that requests in the heat like “Mom! I want water! And ice cream!” don't empty your wallet. You paid for “everything” - and enjoy yourself without leaving the club hotel. An ideal option for comfort lovers with no financial constraints. You can make a tour in the Antalya area cheaper by reducing the stars in the hotel name, but this season reliable four-star hotels are not too different in price from five-star ones, and you shouldn't go to three-star hotels (with rare exceptions). If you want to save money on vacation, then go to Bulgaria or... to the other side of Turkey!
The Other Shore, But What a Shore!..
It is not yet a fact that the Mediterranean (Antalya) coast in Turkey is the best - a doubt crept into our heads. So we leafed through the faithful companion of restless tourists - the “Polyglot” guidebook - and set off for another sea, the Aegean... Why? There are many arguments. First, we wanted something new. Second, we were tired of the heat, and the Aegean coast is northern, meaning not too hot. The guidebook promised “sea coves and Greek temples”, and in anticipation of ancient antiquities and beautiful sea, we flew on a flight to Izmir.
The sea turned out to be truly amazing, with fantastic shades of blue. The coastline is more diverse than on the Mediterranean: more bays, capes. From the shore you see not an endless sea distance, but romantic islands of neighboring Greece. By the way, about Greece. At school we studied the history of the ancient world, and some still remember the names of famous ancient cities: Troy, Halicarnassus, Ephesus, Miletus, Smyrna. So, they need to be looked for right here, on the Aegean coast! Oddly enough, a significant part of the history of the ancient world was made in Asia Minor, on the territory of modern Turkey.
Many ancient monuments are perfectly preserved. Thus, in Ephesus today you can wander the streets of a dead city, linger at the slender columns of the Library of Celsus, sit in the stone rows of the grandiose amphitheater (which seats 24,000 spectators!) and even learn about some piquant details of the everyday life of the ancient inhabitants of Ephesus. Local guides (with good Russian, mind you) like to spice up their story with reports that the public baths and toilet are well preserved, and a little further they will point to a sign embedded in the pavement pointing to a brothel. Here, in Ephesus, the famous Temple of Artemis was also located, one of the seven wonders of the world. True, according to legend, it was destroyed by the mad Herostratus, but one of the columns survived and stands among the summer wildflowers as an edification to us, the living, about the vanity of existence and human vanity...
We cannot list everything we managed to see, and some things we left for the next visit to the Aegean - maybe a week will be available in the autumn. Then we would certainly get to Bodrum - ancient Halicarnassus. It is not far from Ephesus, where another of the seven wonders of the world is located - the tomb of King Mausolus. On the same Aegean, in Didyma - the Temple of Apollo, in Priene - the Temple of Athena, and in Miletus - a Roman-era theater and the Baths of Faustina, wife of Emperor Marcus Aurelius.
...Suddenly I thought: an excellent way to introduce kids to history is to give them a trip to the Aegean for the autumn holidays... But while it's summer, and if you are tired of antiquity - no problem: the coast around Izmir is rich not only in them.
On the way back, our flight neighbors, a young couple from Kiev, told us that for the second year they have been going to Bodrum to sail on a yacht (there is an excellent sailing center), and in the evening it is a real city of entertainment: the “Halicarnassus” disco gathers young people from all over Europe. If we return to sea-side recreation, the beaches of Bodrum and neighboring Marmaris and Fethiye (by the way, on the border of the Aegean and Mediterranean seas) are among the best in the world. But that is not all that the Aegean has to offer!
We went to the small resort town of Cesme, consisting entirely of villas with lovely courtyards, for the thermal springs. You can warm up in them at the magnificent center of the Sheraton hotel. On the way to Kusadasi, we stopped by a new water park among pine trees by the waters of the bay. And in the evening we took a promenade and admit that on the Aegean coast it is quite secular.
By the way, don't be afraid of local transport: minibuses shuttle from resort to resort, and at any point you can get off and continue your journey a couple of hours later. The towns along the coast are cozy and unhurried, so leisurely strolls along the waterfront can be combined with visiting small restaurants or popping into souvenir shops and stores. If anyone misses a big city with its large-scale shopping, then you should go to Izmir, the third largest city in Turkey. We, however, had escaped to vacation from the hustle and bustle, so we drove through Izmir without stopping.
In short, the promises of the guidebook authors were not empty: whichever corner of the Aegean coast you choose, you will find distinctive nature, a wonderful sea unlike any other, excellent hotels, activities and entertainment to your liking, amazing cuisine, and the cordiality of local residents. The route to the resort area of the Aegean coast lies through two airports - Izmir and Dalaman. Consequently, transfer to any hotel is not too tiring.
Convinced? Well, we didn't aim for that, we simply shared our experience. Try this kind of vacation for yourself, and we are sure: in the coming years you too will know where to go in the summer!
Vacations on the Aegean coast will vary in price depending on the set of amenities at the hotel (and, of course, its category). Moreover, five stars on the Aegean are more modest than in Antalya, or rather, without excesses, but more refined. If you search, you can easily fit into a little over $1,000 for two for two weeks. In Marmaris, for example, with its nice and decent three-star hotels! Our tour operators have understood this, and today a flight to Marmaris from Kyiv is a common thing.
For lovers of sea delicacies, there is nothing better: fish restaurants on the waterfront in Kusadasi, Marmaris, or Bodrum are at every step. And - unlike the luxurious ones in Kyiv - people with quite modest means can afford lunch in them. You should go on excursions after resting a day or two after arrival. And if you are not too lazy and are not afraid to act independently, then with the Polyglot guidebook to Turkey you can arrange a luxurious journey along its routes (Nos. 2, 3, or 5), fully or partially, in a rented car or on local transport - any option will be worthy of attention.
In parting
Of course, our journey beyond three seas did not end on the Aegean coast of Turkey - on the contrary, new horizons opened: Greece, Cyprus, and beyond them Italy, the south of France, Spain, Portugal little explored by our vacationers (unlike illegal workers), and North African resorts like Tunisia and Morocco. But for the next stage, you need to at least stock up on guidebooks and maps. But having scouted it out, we promise to share our experience. Or maybe you yourself are already ready to plan a route?
Tatyana GRIBOVA,
Alexander KHALANSKY