Natalia Buchok and I started our journey on August 28th, on a 6:30 LOT airlines flight out of Toronto, and landed in Warsaw early in the morning on the 29th. The food served on the flight was surprisingly not bad. Chicken with rice, a sandwich, wine, coffee, a chocolate bar. The woman in front of my was annoying. She put her chair back as far as it would go, hitting my knees, and then she kept on bouncing on it, I guess trying to soften up the pillow. The boy behind me kept getting up (pulling Natalia’s hair as he did so) and kept bumping the back of my seat and opening and closing the window. Made for difficult sleeping. They served us a bun and cold cuts and cheese for breakfast.
Our LOT connecting flight to Odessa was delayed 45 minutes. The security in Warsaw was ridiculously slow. Everyone going through beeped. Once we were past security, we found a bathroom (very clean) and I bought a bottle of water, which was 5 euros (approx $7.50 Canadian)!!
There was no announcement about why the flight was delayed or where to go but we kept on looking for announcements and watching other people to see what they were doing. We were finally checked through and put on a shuttle bus in the pouring rain instead of the plane. A man came out of the plane and told us there were technical problems and they’d soon be resolved.
We finally got on. I had a seat to myself but Natalia had to sit beside this whacko American who was “meeting his bride” in Odesa. This was the third time for him trying this. The guy had no social skills and seemed to be checking out Natalia in case bride three fell through. As soon as the seat belt sign went off, she changed seats and sat beside me.
We did manage to sleep a bit and they gave us another meal – bread, cheese, meat, and a chocolate bar.
Here’s a photo of the Warsaw airport as we waited:
On Sunday morning, first stop was Three Fishes Restaurant in Sevastopol. Just like Saturday’s restaurant, there wasn’t a breakfast menu or even a lunch menu. Everything was geared towards a three course dinner. What we both felt like for breakfast was some of that excellent Turkish coffee we’d had the morning before, plus eggs and toast. The cook refused to make toast – I think Eugene told them we wanted French toast – so we had fried eggs and bread instead, along with the coffee and some respectable orange juice. The restaurant had a great bathroom. It was not only clean, with a modern toilet, soap and paper towels, it was interesting, which stone walls and ceramic floors.
After breakfast, Eugene wanted us to see the panorama of the Crimean War. This was the first panorama ever made – ie – invented here. Asolutely amazing detail, with clay models that looked life-like – posed as soldiers and officers during various famous parts of the battles. Also shown was the first sister of mercy, giving water to soldiers, and Pigorov, the first doctor to use nurses. It was fascinating to see that the battle mounds were dug shallowly into the groud, then built up with basket-like wooden structures. Over top of this was dirt and sandbags. In the side were doors. The soldiers slept inside and fought on top. The soldiers were wearing heavy winter clothing despite them fighting in sweltering summer weather.
Here is one of Eugene’s jokes:
Socialisism, Communism and Capitalism were going to have a meeting, but Socialism was late. The other two asked him why he was late. He said he’d been in a line-up waiting for kobassa. Capitalisim asked, “What is lineup?” Communist asked, “What is kobassa?”
another joke:
It is not up to the host to count the amount of food his guests eat. That’s the job of his wife.
Another Eugenism, while crossing a busy street: “We’re in the right. “We may be killed, but we’re in the right.”
After that, we drove to a WWII memorial for dead Soviet soldiers. It was a long treed walk and there were also displays of naval artifacts.
When we walked around the other side of the monument, we could see where the charge of the light brigade occurred.
The we drove to Balaclava. This was a secret naval base during Soviet times and the city was closed to the public and never mentioned in newspapers etc. It has a huge S shaped harbour that fish love and it had been a fishing town before becoming the military experimental centre. Lots of utilitarian and sturdy but not very pretty buildings and walls.
We then drove to the other side and walked up to see some of the Genovese Fortress.
After that, we drove to Eskir Kamin, which was quite a distance, first on regular roads, but then on dirt packed roads with no markings. This was definitely not a tourist place. While we were still on the paved road, Eugene stopped at a fruit stand and we bought muscat grapes, pears and black raspberries. Delicious!
The Eskir Kamin cave towns were WAY high up and quite a walk. It took about 45 minutes to get up but boy was it worth it. A whole city had been up there in ancient times, complete with toll roads, a church, houses with several rooms, all within the caves.
Esker Camin
window through stone
Marsha
door
Toll booth
road
one of many rooms
other visitors
chapel
room
Natalia
holes through the rock
fast way down
Eugene
The stone itself was formed from these interesting small white snails that crawl up grasses. Century upon century of dead snail shells formed the rocks.
Here’s what the snails look like:
Getting down the mountain was a bit more treacherous than climbing up and we felt like we’d had a really good workout by the time we got down.
There was a small restaurant at the base of Eskir Kamin (only restaurant). Lots of black pigs running around, and on the menu was black pig cooked various ways. We ate black pig and one of them bit Natalia. She has a nice round bruise on her thigh. We had the pork two ways – pounded and breaded and served over mashed potatoes, and also in blinis. I had a Crimean beer.
We cleaned up the apartment and packed and left at about 10am. Right now, we’re sitting in the line-up at customs to get into Poland. We got scammed for 150 hryvny ($32 Cdn) for the “fast” line-up. Eugene says that often these scammers are quite honest, but today there wasn’t much of a line-up. Seems the customs officers all took lunch at the same time though.
We stopped at a gas station just before the border. The bathroom was so spotless and modern that it would put many Canadian public bathrooms to shame.
In a few metres, we’ll not be in Ukraine any more. What a wonderful country it is.
We arrived at this border at 12:19. It is currently 2:15 and we’re still waiting. We’ve eaten cheese on bread as a lunch – leftovers from the fridge – and it was pretty tasty. We can see Poland. We can almost touch it. Now if only the cars would move.
Our wait at the border ended up being three hours and four minutes in total. When we finally got onto the highway, the first thing we noticed was that the highway was well-maintained. No potholes. And there were lots of road signs. Very well-organized and easy to get around. We drove to Sanok, admiring the scenery as we went. It looked just like Ukraine, but more prosperous and no litter. This is how I imagine Ukraine could look in ten years. It already looks so much nicer than 2001, but Poland is beautiful. I didn’t expect to like it. I had no expectations.
We checked in to an absolutely beautiful hotel in Sanok called Hotel Jagiellowksa which was on the main drag. Eugene asked a local for directions, and was told to go in the exact opposite of where the hotel was. We finally got there, drove through the very narrow opening to the parking lot and checked in. The room was lovely! Two double beds, hardwood floors, open and airy. A small but functional bathroom and the water pressure in the shower was so good it could practically take your skin off. There was a sofa and two ottoman chairs. Very clean, spacious airy, comfortable.
We walked up the hill to downtown and tried several bank machines for money but we were having the same problem that I had had in Lviv the day before. Eugene was able to get money out on his card so we were able to have dinner at a restaurant off the main square. We were able to find a machine on the way back that would give us money, so we paid him back. Whew, was getting worried about that!
Differences between Ukraine and Poland:
Beer is ubiquitous in Ukraine; ice cream and cake in Poland. The girls where stilettos and trashy clothes in Ukraine; in Poland they look more like us. Ukraine has potholes, trash, poor signage; Poland has the opposite. In both places, the houses look the same, although Poland has a larger proportion of prosperous ones. In Poland, apartment balconies and front steps are decorated with bright pots of flowers. Lots of flowers in Ukraine too, but in gardens.
It was our first early night in a long time. After supper, we had tea and cake at the hotel restaurant.
If you ever go to Sanok, do stay at Hotel Jagiellonski. Natalia and I shared a beautiful room with hardwood floors and comfortable double beds, a huge airy window, a sofa and two ottoman chairs. The room was 160 zlotys a night, which worked out to $73, or less than $40 for each of us. Eugene’s room was 130 zlotys and it looked very nice too, although of course smaller. Breakfast was included, and it was huge and yummy. And they have free wireless internet.
After breakfast, we walked up the hill to the main part of town to get some maps from the tourist bureau and also to get more money from the bank machine that worked for our cards.
Our first stop was an outdoor folk museum. This part of Poland was Ukrainian until Operation Wisla after WWII, when all of the Ukrainians in the area were deported to the Soviet Union. The folk museum displayed traditional houses and churches from that earlier era. It was interesting to see and touch artifacts that we had just read about. For example, Natalia had heard about wooden cemetery markers. They had some here:
We were both struck by the beauty and elegance of the cemetery marker. Later, when we were in the museum gift shop, we noted several carved figures similar to the ones used in the markers.
Our next stop was a small village close to the Ukrainian-Polish border. We saw more of these carvings:
Something else that we noticed as we were driving through this rural area was ornate road markers every half kilometer or so. Natalia speculates that these are markers commemorating the end of serfdom from Austro-Hungarian times. I would be curious to find out more information about them. They’re beautiful:
We found it easy to navigate in rural Poland. Everything is well marked and many people speak English. Our next stop was Krakow, so we backtracked and drove through Sanok again and had an early supper at Hotel Jagiellowska and then continued on to Krakow.
We got into town quite late at night and the street we needed to take to get to our hotel was under construction. Hotel Wielopole is just a few steps away from the city centre of Krakow and so very convenient. It was the most expensive place on our entire trip, so Eugene had booked himself into a hostel to save us money. Our room was clean and comfortable, but tiny. We met Eugene the next day at the hotel for breakfast.
