Schedules to be advised

BLACK SEA EXCURSIONS

Excursion Description

Our tour begins with a short drive along the port and the railway station to the Roman thermal baths.  Varna ’s thermal baths are impressive proof of the prosperity, civic pride and high level of government of Roman Odessos. The baths were constructed during the reign of Antonius Pius in the second century AD. They stayed in use until the end of the 3rd century or the beginning of the 4^th century.  An earthquake, which devastated Varna and the surrounding area during the second half of the fifth century, also severely damaged the thermal baths.

Excavations show that the baths covered an area of approximately 7000 square metres.  The buildings were, for the most part, over 18 meters high. The symmetrical design of the baths resulted from the necessity of building separate but identical sections for men and women visitors.  We will visit the entrance halls (vestibules); the communal hall (palaestra); the changing rooms (apodyteria); the cold baths (frigidaria), warm and tepid-water baths (tepidaria) and the hot baths (caldaria).  Furnaces, situated in the gallery beyond the hot baths, heated the air and the water.  The baths were supplied with water from a spring above the nearby village of Vinitsa .

Our tour continues with a short drive to the Ethnographic museum. The museum occupies a house built in 1860 and an annex, specially built for the needs of the exposition. The house and the courtyard remind one of the calm of bygone ages.  The ground floor displays exhibits, connected with the livelihood of the local population.  We will see implements and tools used in the local industries and crafts, such as vine-growing, wine production, sheep breeding, grain production, furriery, fishing, bee-keeping etc.

The first floor is devoted to folk art, the museum’s basic theme, which is mainly reflected in the costumes, fabrics and embroidery of the various ethnographic groups.  The second floor shows the arrangement of a room belonging to a peasant family and of a rich urban house from the end of the 19^th and the beginning of the 20^th centuries.

Our coach then takes us over the Asparouhovo Bridge .  While driving back to the city center, we will be able to see the beautiful panorama of Varna . 

Our next stop will be in the city’s main square to pay a visit to the cathedral of Varna . The Assumption cathedral, like the Alexander Nevski cathedral in Sofia and the domed church of Shipka , was built to commemorate the Russian troops who died fighting for the liberation of Bulgaria in 1877-78. The church is in fact a copy of a Russian church in St. Petersburg . The foundation stone was laid in 1880 and it took 6 years before the building was completed in 1886.  (Photographs cannot be taken in the church).

After a very short drive along the fountains’ square with the opera we reach the Archaeological museum.  The building was constructed in the period 1892-1898. The architectural style is Late Baroque. After a total reconstruction of the building of the former girls’ college - the largest in the Balkan Peninsula in the first half of the 20^th century – in 1981 it was reopened and transformed into a museum with an exhibition area of 2150 square metres.  The idea was to commemorate the 1300 year anniversary from the foundation of the Bulgarian state in 681, and to house important archaeological exhibits, including the oldest gold-treasure in the world, dated from the 4^th millennium B.C.  It was unearthed precisely in the Varna Neolithic necropolis.  The gold treasure is comprised of over 2000 exhibits.  In the museum there are also rooms dedicated to the:

§         Old Stone and Middle Stone Age;

§         Stone-Copper age;

§         Early Thracian Culture;

We then proceed to the rooms dedicated to the Antiquity and the establishment of Odessos.

(Photographs cannot be taken in the museum).

Back on our coach, we proceed through Varna , passing by the municipal house, the Economic University , the Palace of Sport and Culture, the Naval Academy , and the sea-gardens with the Dolphinarium.  We arrive some 15 km. to the north - to the unique jungle-like Nature-reserve next to Golden Sands resort.   Along the way we shall see one of the most sophisticated residential areas, the former palace of Bulgarian tsars called Euxinograd (built in 1882), and the St. Constantine and Elena-resort nearby, which marked the beginning of international tourism in Bulgaria in 1946.  Further northwards we finally approach the Nature reserve.

Lunch will be served at the “ Forest Nook” restaurant situated in the beautiful Nature Reserve. During lunch we will also enjoy a folkloric performance.

After lunch we head some 3 km to the west of the resort of Golden sands, where we find the old rock-cut Aladja monastery.  Aladja in Turkish means “multicolored” and the name was probably derived from the frescoes, found in the past on the walls of the chapel.  The locality would appear to have been inhabited from prehistoric times.  Tools, dating from the Stone Age, have been found here.

After the coming of Christianity to Bulgarian territories at the end of the fifth century, the cliffs in the dense forests afforded a refuge for hermits, fleeing from the temptations of the world. The cells and the chapel date back to the 13^th century.  During the decline of the Byzantine Empire the members of a heretical sect, the hesycasts, moved into the monastery. Hesycasm was a religious movement, preaching patience and obedience and believing that the road to heaven was passing through silence and absolute immobility.

Our tour then continues to the Petrified Forest, driving once more through the city of Varna along “Vladislav” Boulevard, which is one of the shopping thoroughfares in the city, along the airport and the beautiful scenery of vineyards and orchards to the site where the Petrified Forest is situated - some 17km to the West of Varna.

This is a small sand desert with scattered high-stone columns of various shapes – some 6 metres high and 1.5 metres thick. These unique rock formations are, according to archaeologists, about 50 millions years of age. They were, in fact, enormous stalactites formed by the water, trickling slowly in the tectonic cracks in the limestone layer, which has by now been washed away. This, combined with the action of wind and rain, has resulted in a fairy-tale forest of stone.

Excursion Description

Our tour begins with a drive to Primorsky Boulevard .  The boulevard’s beauty lies in the early 19th century buildings, the shady promenade, the park tumbling towards the sea, and the sweep of the Potyomkin Steps. The 193 steps, built between 1837 & 1841, descend from a statue of the Duc de Richelieu in a Roman Toga.  At the eastern end a Pushkin statue and a British Tiger Gun, captured in 1854 during the Crimean campaign, stand before the pink-and-white colonnaded Odessa City Hall .

Our first visit is at the Archaeology Museum , established in 1875 and the first museum of its kind in the former Russian Empire. The museum houses archaeological finds from the region predominantly.  The collection includes artefacts of different cultures, including ancient Greek, Scythian, and early Slavic.  We will also view the Opera House with its impressive exterior. The Opera and Ballet Theatre was designed in the 1880s by Viennese architects Felner & Gelmer in the Habsburg Baroque of the day, with a number of Italian Renaissance features.

Our tour continues along tree-lined Odessa streets to the Greek Church, built in the 19^th century with the donations of the Greek community of the city.  We will visit the church marvelling at the magnificent interiors. Then on to the famous mansion that became the cradle of Greek independence in early 19^th century.  It was here that the secret patriotic society Filiki Eteria was founded in 1814 and led the Greek people to freedom.  Today the mansion houses the Foundation for Greek Culture and a museum.  We will learn the history of a Greek Merchant of XIX century Odessa , visit the museum exposition and listen to the patriotic solemn oath of the members of Filiki Eteria.

A local restaurant will then welcome us for a deliscious, traditional Ukrainian lunch.

After lunch we will continue to the Palace of Count Pototsky , housing the Odessa Fine Arts Museum .  Its maze of over 15 rooms on 2 floors has treasures, which run from 15^th century icons onwards and includes works by Levitsky, Ayvazovsky & Repin.

Excursion Description

Our tour begins with a short drive to Alexander Nevsky Cathedral – Yalta ’s central Russian Orthodox temple, built in the early 20^th century under design of A. Krasnov – the author of Livadia Palace . The façade of the cathedral is remarkable for the mosaic picture of the ancient Russian Prince Alexander Nevsky – a Russian saint.  We will admire the interiors of the cathedral.

Our tour continues to Anton Chekhov’s Memorial House, where the great Russian classic wrote his famous “A Lady With a Lap Dog”, “Cherry Orchard”, and “The Three Sisters”. The exposition features authentic furniture and the writer’s personal things.

Leaving the museum, our coach will take us to Livadia Palace – the summer residence of the last Russian Tsar Nicholas II and the venue of the Crimean Conference in 1945.  Built in Italian Renaissance style in 1911 for the imperial family, the white palace is one of the most remarkable attractions of the Southern Coast of the Crimea .  We will see the Great White Hall, where the fate of post-war Europe was decided in 1945, feel the atmosphere of the rooms where the Tsar’s family lived, learn the details of everyday life of Russian aristocracy of the early 20^th century.

Following lunch, our coach takes us along the Black Sea coastline to the symbol of the Crimea – the Swallow’s Nest castle, hanging over the sea on a 38-meter high rock.  Here we will have the opportunity to admire and take photos of this unusual and very impressive sight.

We then continue to Alupka (Vorontsov’s Palace).  After a short walk through the magnificent park we will find ourselves in front of the Tudor-style Northern façade of the palace, which belonged to the wealthiest person of 19^th century Russia . The grandiose building took 20 years to construct, material being local stone diabas (twice as hard as granite).

The architect, Englishman Edward Blore (one of the authors of Buckingham palace in London ), designed Vorontsov’s Palace as a blend of styles with gothic exteriors harmonically neighboring eastern Moorish elements.

We will walk through the authentic interiors of the palace, marvel at finely carved marble sculptures of the winter garden, and admire numerous paintings (including Hogarth, Hubert, Shchedrin).  We’ll enjoy the striking beauty of the Southern façade, built in oriental style and resembling the temples of Alhambra in Spain .

NOTE: Louis Cruise Lines reserves the right to revise or alter the above excursion at any time in case of any unforeseen circumstances.