Odessa began with a thunder and lightening storm and the walking tours were cancelled and it looked like a gloomy day ahead. However, by the time our tours began, the skies had begun to clear and warm up.

We had originally signed up for Odessa Palaces. I was concerned that it sounded somewhat dull and long for us after our 12 hour day. It was just Palace after Palace looking at rooms followed by a concert. Doug really isn't into furniture and rooms as I and I was worried there might not even be any furniture. My objective on a cruise like this is to learn as much as I can about each port and take the tour with as much info. Not sure that's Doug's objective. So, I switched to Odessa Highlights, knowing Yalta was a 6 1/2 hour tour.

As our bus left the port, the Potemkin steps in all their glory lay ahead of us. We were expecting another run down city, but were surprised to find an amalgamation of Paris, Venice, Vienna before us. The charming tree lined streets were reminiscent of Paris, the Baroque and neo classic buildings reminiscent of Vienna and the colored stucco screamed Venice. All the buildings kind of look like giant wedding cakes. It was the size of a small city, certainly walkable and has many luxury stores and restaurants. Today it also had an arts and crafts market in its lovely park. Our tour took us to a fine arts museum which housed (to us unknown) Odessa artists who painted portraits and landcapes in impressionist styles. There were also some sculptures. They were absolute gems. We were all taken aback. What a worthwhile museum. It is certainly a great city to walk around and Doug and I did just that after lunch. We even walked down the entire Potemkin steps. All around the steps there are men who have small alligators, owls, and monkeys and put them on children or foolish adults in order to take your pictures with them for money. There are gypsies in the park, so you do have to watch your wallet. The streets are torn up and they are doing a lot of work on refurbishing the city, so it should be a gorgeous place in a few years time. Brides were everywhere today. We must have seen about 10.

Now, on to other important subject matters like food and fun! Lunch was great today...Boullabaisse and prime rib! Yum. Raspberries and cherries are still in abundance too. Tonight Ngaire had her cocktail party and some of us had dinner with the staff. Doug, Carol, Ralph, Mary Ellen, Jim and I had dinner with the Captain and it was a really fun evening. All of the LCT tables were pretty close together, so we all kept in close contact with one another around dinner time. A juggler was the entertainment. We were having so much fun, we missed most of his show, but what we caught was pretty good. Then, some of us met in the lounge.

There was so much to write about, that I didn't write about everything from our pre-cruise...so back to Istanbul a bit...I miswrote the name of our hotel..Sirkeci Konak hotel. As opposed to Fred and Pat's hotel, it included a lovely breakfast of meats, cheeses, hot quiche, potatoes, halava in two flavors, fruits, cereals, vegetables.

The hotel restaurant has an excellent fish restaurant which is located on the roof with great food, service and views and is called Neyzade Terrace Restaurant. Prices were reasonable.

Another good restaurant was a Turkish style restaurant walking distance from our hotel is called Pasazade.

Cappadocia is a lovely alternative to Istanbul, and we can recommend the Museum Cave Hotel, but not our room. While it was lovely and large and looked just like the picture on the website, it was damp and dark. Other rooms did not have this problem, so just make sure not to get Direkli Cave.