Odessa really is charming. It makes sense to take the Palaces tour, or really any of the others--we saw several spectacular palaces (the beauty is all in the interior.) The cathedral was closed for renovation back then, but I've heard it's really worth it. Lots of pretty leafy streets, great streetscapes.

In Constanta we also got out to the Danube delta with the tour to ancient Histria. It's Greek, and just ruins on the coast, with a little museum. But the wildlife, especially birds, were amazing, as was the view of a very different life--horse carts, haying being done with scythes and pitchforks, a very different century. Constanta itself is struggling, but studying the women's shoe stores was fascinating.

In Nessebur you could just walk around, it's quite small. It's a Unesco World Heritage site and has dozens of incredible medieval churches, very very old. We did a walking tour of those churches, and it was very informative, and we got into some churches that we would otherwise not have been allowed, but I admit it was sort of tedious. There are lots of tourists there--they mostly go to Sunny Beach, a garish outpost near the ancient city.

In Sevastopol it's hard to ignore the Crimean War--we were very fortunate to have an onboard expert who gave lectures, and who accompanied us on our tour of the Valley of Death, Balaklava, the Panorama Museum and Malakhov Hill, site of one of the main defensive position during the war.
Sevastopol also seemed to be a great place to walk around--the Panorama Museum was a definite highly.

Don't get me started on Istanbul-we spent 6 days there and really loved it.