Just outside Alushta there was yet another steep uphill climb, which was later compensated by the speed at which we entered the city. Alushta is a commercial and rather expensive resort. We stayed overnight practically in the city centre, at 17 Gwardienskaya Street, (brown metal entrance gate – highly recommendable place!). A really peaceful spot and a cosy double room with bathroom (hot water) for UAH 100 per night. The following day we visited the nearby Marble Cave. It is beautiful. The entrance fee is UAH 50 per person, a photo permit costs UAH 10. In the cave there is a steady temperature of 9 degrees Centigrade and you can rent the jackets for UAH 2. Interestingly, the Marble Cave was only discovered in 1987 and made available to the general public in 1989. Thus it escaped the fate of a few neighbouring caves, destroyed by vandals.

Once we got back outside it was raining. At the parking lot there was only an old Volga. The driver offered to take us down to Zarechnoye, but we needed to wait for another pair of tourists. After a two-hour wait the tourists appeared, but the driver also �ż�śadded” a young married couple, and the seven of us rode down the hill. It was raining cats and dogs and all the car windows were fogged up. It was like a roller coaster ride, except for the fact that we could not see anything. Instead of the roller coaster track we had a dirt road, which the rain turned into a brown, clayish stream, but we were not afraid. Quite the contrary, we felt like bursting into a laugh ;-). In Zarechnoye we took a trolleybus back to Alushta – UAH 4 per person. By the way, Crimea prides itself on probably the longest trolleybus route in the world – about 80 km!