Steven's Trip to Ukraine

Kitchen in the apartment in Simferopol	Normal Kitchen	Normal Fridge	Remember, sun goes behind you when taking pictures.
Normal bathroom, except for the bidet.	Washer that I never figured out.	Living room	Closet in bedroom
A market street in Simferopol	Gulya (left) and Yulia (right)	Yulia (left) and Gulya (right)	Steven and Yulia
Supermarket in Yalta across from bus station	Bus station in Yalta	On the coast in Yalta	On the coast in Yalta
The only McDonalds I saw on the whole trip (no I did not eat here)	The port in Yalta	The port in Yalta	Your's truly
Yulia in a cable car with me.	Pictures of Yalta from the cable car.	Pictures of Yalta from the cable car.	Pictures of Yalta from the cable car.
Old house.	Yulia being shy.	Yulia	The black sea.
Yalta and the surrounding mountains	Yalta	Playing with the zoom on my camera	Me
Me	The shore-front in Yalta.	An orthodox church.	More of the church.
The bell tower	The side entrance.	Yulia at the main entrance.	Steven at the main entrance
Leave it to me to go all the way to Ukraine, and find a motorcycle show...	with a Valkyrie!	People were dressing up for pictures	Me and a famous writer.
Me and Athena	Again	Me and some dude I'd rather not talk about.	In the botanical gardens. Bamboo!
Yulia in the botanical gardens.	Me in a gazeebo.	Some plant	Yulia and I
This is a fountain of tears, I guess I shouldn't be smiling so much.	Yulia appropriately somber	Steven with some sort of pink flowers.	Yulia looks much better with flowers!
More flowers	Some plant	Artistic gardening	Yes they have grafitti in Ukraine too.
Roses	Closeup of Yulia and roses	Me and Lennin	Picture from my room in the hotel in Simiez
There's Yulia by the pool.			The top of the rock near the hotel.
Playing with zoom.	Yulia says Hi	Alupkinski palace.	Outside grounds.
Archway between the castle walls.	Inner and outer walls.	Approaching the inner courtyard.	Inner courtyard.
Inner courtyard.	Bottled water is everywhere.	Special booties to prevent damage to floors.	Interrior garden
Small statue.	Small statue	Small statue	A vase
A fireplace	A statue	A ceiling	A ceiling
Outside on the grounds of the palace	Looking out onto the black sea	Palace Grounds	Door of the palace facing the black sea
Palace Grounds	Palace Grounds	Supposed to be a sleeping lion	Another Fountain
Palace Grounds	Strange statue	Another fountain	This time I'm not smiling quite so much in front of the fountain of tears.
Yulia	Yulia	Yulia and Steven	Just Steven
Just Yulia	Waterfall on the palace grounds	Waterfall	Waterfall
Smile!	In the gardens on the palace grounds	Same spot, different person	More of the Palace Grounds
Yulia on the grass	Yulia on the grass	Steven on the rocks	Hi!
An update to a picture Yulia took several years ago	Still on the palace grounds	This is the palace at Lavadia	Closer
Outside the palace at Lavadia waiting for the tour	Outside the palace	Outside the palace	Outside the palace
More shots of details outside the palace	Steven	Yulia	Waiting for the tour to start
Tour group to the right	The palace at Lavadia was where the leaders gathered after world war II to discuss arrangements.	They all sat in this room.	At this table.
Yulia again, wondering why I keep taking so many pictures of her :-)	Another meeting room in the palace.	The fireplace at the end of the room.	Same room
Stalin and Roosevelt	A ceiling	Another picture of the leaders at the meetings	Another table where they sat.
Yulia and a fireplace	A greek garden in the center of the palace	A writing desk	The last owners of the Palace.
A vase	Nice woodwork	A fireplace	The Vase again
One of the bedrooms had lots of religous paintings in it.	An old bible	A fireplace	Not sure who they are
Nice woodwork	It helps to be tall so you can take pictures over the heads of the rest of the tour group.	More wood panneling	Another ceiling
Outside in the greek garden	The garden	Yulia and the Fountain	Yulia again
Old greek bench with a sign that she later told me said "don't sit on benches"	But it was in Cyrillic, so I couldn't read it.	The fountain again	The garden
The garden	Pictures of the sun shining through the clouds	The sun's rays through the clouds	We were going to take a cable-car up the mountain to Ai Petri, but were convinced by a driver to let him take us up the road instead for the same price. We stopped several times along the way for photos. This is a large waterfall that in the spring would have washed us away from where we stood.
Same waterfall	Larget shot of the waterfall.	Overlooking Yalta on the way up the mountain	The mountains north of Yalta
Closer view of the port at Yalta	Yulia and I in front of the same shot of Yalta	Up at the top of the mountain.	An overlook from the mountain called Ai-Petri
We stopped for dinner on the mountain at a Crimean-Tartar eatery.	The soup, and kebabs that we had to eat, along with us :-)	Yulia had never ridden a horse before, so we decided to go for a short ride to a cave local to the area. She's doing quite well for her first time!	At the top of the vertical cave we rode to.
Another shot at the top of the cave.	Yulia made it back up on the horse again.	Smile!	We decided to go for a bit longer ride than the rest of the group, and we're heading back to the stables now.
Yulia's still smiling, you can tell she enjoyed it.	It was a lot of fun!	All too soon, it's over though.	This is the swimming pool at the hotel we stayed at in Simeiz.
Another of the pool.	We were trying to use their computer to transfer some of these pictures to Yulia's pocket-pc so she would have them right away. It didn't work out, though.	While we were playing with the computer, Yulia took some shots of the hotel. The lobby.	The stairs up to the rooms (no elevators in this hotel)
The lobby and the bar.	The lobby.	This is in the Big Canyon of the Crimea, at a place they call the fountain of youth. The water temperature here is about 3 degrees Celsius. (37F)	Some of the surrounding terrain.
Yulia poses for the camera.	Do I really want to go in the water?	Well, how about just a little bit.	It's cold!
The stream above the fountain of youth.	The waterfall into the fountain of youth.	Yulia still can't decide whether it's too cold.	Hiking back to the car from the fountain of youth. Just pausing to pose for a picture.
The Bakhchisarai Palace. Former residence of Crimean Khans.	Interior courtyard.	Waiting for the tour to start.	Fountain inside one of the palace rooms.
Pretty designs.	The most famous fountain of tears in the Crimea.	Outside one of the palace rooms.	Yulia knows I like drums :-)
Drums	A ceiling. Is it a white celing with red decorations, or a red ceiling with white decorations?	Yulia standing next to a traditional dress	I think the outfit is too short for me to wear.
Historical baby cradle.	Tall spire on one of the palace rooms.	Another interior courtyard shot.	Travelling now to the monastary close by that was built into caves in the sides of mountains.
Playing with the zoom on my camera again. Full zoom out.	Full zoom in :-)	The stairs up to the church.	From the top of the stairs looking back down.
Looking across at a cave house on the other side of the valley.	World War II memorial	Propeller	Car that some generals rode in.
Yulia next to a torpedo.	Steven in front of a tank.	Same tank, closer view.	View of the mountains from the WWII memorial site.
Yulia in front of the same view.	We're in Sevastopol now, on a ship that will give us a tour of the harbor.	It had rigging, but used it's engines for the tour :-)	Some warships in the harbor.
Yulia, checking the boat for safety before we left the dock.	The mouth of the harbor, some large tugs comming in.	Some of the buildings in Sevastopol.	A historical monument.
Another monument, with a bird on top.	After the harbor we went to the ruins of a Greek city that once stood where Sevastopol is now.	A curch on the site of the Greek ruins.	Some old Greek columns.
More columns	Yulia and I under an arch that still stands.	Some of the old walls.	A bell that has been re-hung.
You can tell it's been re-positioned because the Greeks didn't make steel I-beams.	Yulia posing behind a Greek column.	A doorway that is still standing.	Now we have made our way to Foros, and this is the Foros church.
View of the mountains around the church.	View down to the sea from the church.	More of the Black sea from the church.	Yulia and I in the courtyard of the church.
At the back of the church.	The black sea and me.	The Foros Church.	The Foros Church.
Here we have moved further up the mountain, away from the church and I'm looking back at it with the zoom lens.	Trying to get a shot that doesn't cut off the top of the church.	A beautiful sunset for a beautiful day!	Yulia and I with the Foros church in the background between us.
We are at the Massandra winery now, taking their guided tour.	How wine used to be stored. (in the jar, not in Steven)	Lots of stored wine, some even dated 1973!	Is it just me or does the courtyard at the winery resemble a prison yard?
Huge barrels where the wine is stored and aged.	An old barrel for something, I don't remember.	And, of course, at the end of the tour is the wine tasting!	This is the Massandra palace. Built by the founders of the winery.
At the front of the palace.	At the front of the palace.	Around the side of the palace.	At the back of the paclace.
The back of the Palace	The back of the Palace	Yulia on the steps at the back of the Palace	Steven near a fountain at the back of the Palace
Some of the woodwork in the Palace	More woodwork.	A gargoyle over one of the fireplaces in the palace	The dining room. Came out a bit dark.
One of the side serving areas in the dining room.	The study of the owner of the palace.		Our last dinner at the hotel. They even found candles for us :-)
Cheers to a wonderful vacation!	Just me.
One last shot of the Black Sea	Ok, had to get one last shot again, because the clouds made the sun's rays look cool.
A candle-lit supper for my last night in Ukraine.