Overlooking Yalta

Now my holiday really starts, I will only travel around this area and the legs will be at the most 50 km. I will have time to read a book, sleep late and stay up late in the night.

Yalta and the Black Sea

Right now I’m in Yalta and the heat has struck again. On my way up the mountain separating Yalta from Simferopol the board computer on my bike read 37 degrees. Luckily for me, only for a short while, as I entered the woods it dropped 10 degrees.

Castle from the outside

On my way here I stopped in Bakhchysaray. There is an old castle, built by the last Khan who lived here. It is a sad story about the Tatars who were forced away from here by Stalin. Hundred of thousand were moved to other places in USSR to prevent national movement. Only very few returned.

The mosque

As I parked my bike, as always I’m “welcomed” by someone who either want to sell me something or want me to pay for parking. This time it as for parking in a public street. Well, I don’t really care so much, the people need money so why not. It is extremely cheep anyway.

A bit later a young man approached me speaking excellent English. His family had a café where the also sold local food. He also was the local English teacher. As the Tatar people lived here, they were Muslims. That is not generally the case any more. But they kept their Arabic names, so I think. The teachers name was Mustafa. I told him, that I know so many Mustafa because I have so many Arabic students. He was impressed. As I said salam wa aleikum he didn’t understand, he was neither a Muslim nor could he speak any Arabic.

Room in the castle

This place was destroyed by a fire and has then been rebuilt. And that is, so far as I can tell, in a very nice way. They even have restored the Mosque, which is now fully functional. At one o’clock I even heard the muadh. After me some Russian people wanted to enter but they didn’t know the Muslim customs and tradition of taking of your shoes and that women must cover them self. The door keeper was not happy. Especially as the women wasn’t wearing that much clothing anyway.

Then I had to gear up again and I must say it isn’t easy when it’s over 35 degrees. But I never compromise on security and when I get rolling the breeze will cool me down, at least a bit. Bur before I start I use to poor a bottle of water over me. When the breeze hits, then it’s nice.

Begin of gravel

Once again I didn’t want to take the easy way, but one through the countryside. I knew that would lead me to bat roads again. But my GPS didn’t say anything about gravel. Well, I could turn back, but that’s not me. I let a lot of air out of the tires and went on gravel for the first time on this trip. Hey, what a joy! But I had to look up, the road went straight through many villages and their animals have probably never seen a big bike going pretty fast on gravel. But no harm came to any hen, goat or sheep. And I was cheered on by many locals!

Serpentines

The part over the mountain was hard. I have never driven a bike, or a car for that matter, through so many serpentines in that, pretty short distance. And the road was mostly just 5 meter broad. Often even less. But it was a thrill that I liked. For you at BMW-klubben who follows me I can say that the accelerator cable did a fantastic work. I didn’t have to shift as often as I would have to do without it which made the ride both safer and more comfortable. It was also very easy to overtake all the slow cars.

I made a mistake, not booking in advance. Yalta is a crazy town when it comes to traffic. And strangely to say, the hotels are hard to find. I took me over an hour to find a suitable one. I will just spend one day here, tomorrow morning I will see the town and in the afternoon continue to Sevastopol. There I will stay for two days. I’ve found a nice and cheaper hotel there. I also have one “must” in Sevastopol, the USSR-marine base.

I will allow my self a day off from my blog. I’ll give it all to you who reads it to comment and cheer me on. The statistic tells about 50 hits per day, so there are a few. That feels nice 🙂

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin overlooks the Crimean people

To finish this up, in the west I never saw a single statue of Lenin. Here they are still standing, and that in every city as far as I can tell. At the same time all people seem very into capitalism. Some one else have to interprete this…