{"id":379,"date":"2008-09-14T01:00:43","date_gmt":"2008-09-13T15:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com\/wordpress\/?p=379"},"modified":"2008-09-14T01:00:43","modified_gmt":"2008-09-13T15:00:43","slug":"dnieper-river-cruise-odessa-pearl-of-the-black-sea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com\/wordpress\/ukraine-river-cruise\/dnieper-river-cruise-odessa-pearl-of-the-black-sea","title":{"rendered":"Dnieper River Cruise: Odessa, &quot;Pearl of the Black Sea&quot;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"float: right\"><script type=\"text\/javascript\"><!--\r\ngoogle_ad_client = \"pub-1009507070974015\";\r\ngoogle_alternate_ad_url = \"http:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com\/google_adsense_script.html\";\r\ngoogle_ad_width = 300;\r\ngoogle_ad_height = 250;\r\ngoogle_ad_format = \"300x250_as\";\r\ngoogle_ad_type = \"text_image\";\r\n\/\/2007-06-30: TSBlog 300x250\r\ngoogle_ad_channel = \"2928184950\";\r\ngoogle_color_border = \"FFFFFF\";\r\ngoogle_color_bg = \"FFFFFF\";\r\ngoogle_color_link = \"FF6600\";\r\ngoogle_color_text = \"000000\";\r\ngoogle_color_url = \"339933\";\r\n\/\/-->\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"\r\n  src=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\">\r\n<\/script><\/p>\n<p>Apart from its famous Potemkin Steps and the mutiny on board the battleship Potemkin, I had very limited perception of Odessa as a tourist destination.\u00a0 Travel guide books suggested that its a city of great historical significance and point to glorious architectural wonders from the days of the tsars, some websites suggested\u00a0Odessa as an up and coming business destination and also\u00a0promoted dating with Ukrainian women and others hinted that it&#8217;s the mafia capital of the Ukraine and that it&#8217;s not safe to venture out in the dark on your own.\u00a0 So, which of these conflicting comments do you believe?\u00a0 When you don&#8217;t know a place, then certainly talk about a city run by the mafia can cause pre-visit jitters about personal safety, especially if you&#8217;ve got an imaginative mind and happen to watch mob movies like the Sopranos.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>So what&#8217;s Odessa really like.\u00a0 It was scorching hot when we arrived in mid-August, made worst by a non-airconditioned taxi ride.\u00a0 We had just been to Yorkshire where it was very cold and wet and the vast change in temperature hit hard at my travel-weary body, after a 5 a.m. start from Heathrow Airport.\u00a0 I could feel a headache coming on.\u00a0 As we drove the 10 miles from Odessa airport to the seaport terminal we went through city centre.\u00a0 The heat,\u00a0dust and glare of the afternoon sun\u00a0made the buildings look as washed out and\u00a0exhausted as we were and I was beginning to wonder where those promised elegant classical buildings were.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The young cab driver was very polite but spoke no English, not even enough to confirm that we needed to be delivered to a boat and not a hotel.\u00a0 We were therefore relieved when we saw the seaport terminal where our riverboat was to be berthed. My research indicates that a landmark to look for is the Hotel Odessa and when we saw this towering hotel, we knew we were in the right place. The cruise company recommended that one does not let go of your cab until you&#8217;ve sighted your cruise boat as their berth can be shifted around by the port authorities.\u00a0 Much as we tried to retain the driver, time was precious and he was in a hurry, no doubt to rush to his next job.\u00a0\u00a0 It would have been so much easier if the cruise company&#8217;s instructions had been that we needed to enter the Port Authority building, go down a couple of flights of stairs and then exit right to the river boat berthing.\u00a0 I guess if they had made it sound so simple, then more passengers would have done what we did, which was to arrange our own transfers, thus saving ourselves $400.<\/p>\n<p>So focussed were we\u00a0on finding out where our boat was moored, that we failed to notice this giant baby sculpture that was staring down in front of the Port Authority building.\u00a0 This beautiful Statue of a Golden Baby symbolizes the rebirth of the City.<\/p>\n<p>Odessa is known as the &#8220;Pearl of the Black Sea&#8221; and claims to be one of the region\u2019s most beautiful cities, with wonderful beaches, shady parks and tree-lined boulevards. The next morning, we did our tour of the old part of town, walking through the historic city centre with its many splendid monuments. When we saw the Opera and Ballet Theatre, Vorontsov Palace and City Hall, my faith was restored, and to top it off, we made it to the Potemkin Steps with its 192 steps leading down to the harbour. The stairs were the setting for a famous scene in Serge Eisenstein\u2019s epic 1926 film, Battleship Potemkin.\u00a0 We were so fortunate that we got to see this film at the Sydney Concert Hall with a full orchestra providing the music.\u00a0 The Steps and the orchestral tension created as the baby&#8217;s pram bounced down the 192 steps were indelibly imprinted on our minds.\u00a0 So at the Steps, we did an instant replay of the movie scene and Tony even bounced down the Steps &#8211;\u00a0loaded with his heavy bag of camera equipment.<\/p>\n<p>At the end of the day, we had a nice feel for Odessa.\u00a0 We felt perfectly safe exploring the city on our own &#8211; and did not have any <em>mafia encounters<\/em>!\u00a0 There is a lot of work going on to beautify the central district and in a year&#8217;s time the area around the waterfront will impress with its boulevards and parks.\u00a0 There are many outdoor cafes and restaurants and the shops stock very trendy gear.\u00a0 Tony even managed to buy a pair of nice pants.\u00a0 More on Odessa later &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Helen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Apart from its famous Potemkin Steps and the mutiny on board the battleship Potemkin, I had very limited perception of Odessa as a tourist destination.\u00a0 Travel guide books suggested that its a city of great historical significance and point to glorious architectural wonders from the days of the tsars, some websites suggested\u00a0Odessa as an up [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[104,70],"tags":[225,661,2374,2401,1570,1970],"class_list":["post-379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-odessa-things-to-see-do","category-ukraine-river-cruise","tag-battleship-potemkin","tag-dnieper-river-cruise-ukraine","tag-european-river-cruise","tag-odessa-things-to-see-do","tag-potemkin-steps","tag-ukraine-travel"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Dnieper River Cruise: Odessa, &quot;Pearl of the Black Sea&quot; 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