Odesa’s famed Arkadiya beach, one of many lining the Black Sea shore. The port city’s hospitality and international flavor attract thousands of people who crowd the beaches by day and the discos by night.

The travel industry makes a lot of money off people like me. I love to go places, but I am often impulsive and don’t book early. So I frequently end up paying top dollar for my transportation and lodging.

Such was the case when my first three-day weekend of the summer presented itself. Thanks to June 28th’s Constitution Day, the following Monday was an official holiday, so I decided to make the most of it.

I had not been to Odesa for many years and really wanted to see it again. I also compared the Kyiv and Odesa weather forecasts and saw this would be a good weekend to go to the beach.

But I didn’t make the decision to go until Friday night after work.

I flirted with the idea of buying a train ticket at the last minute. But when three friends said there are no tickets available to Odesa, I took their word as the gospel truth, and didn’t even bother trying to check myself.

Fortunately, in recent years, travel in Ukraine has become easier in many ways, at least by air.

Aerosvit Airlines, www.aerosvit.ua is a shining example. Not only is the site in Russian, English and Ukrainian, but – since June 1 of this year — the airline started selling e-tickets for all its flights, according to their website. The tickets, since the start of the year, can be booked online too.

The airline also takes all major credit cards, even American Express, which is generally useless in Ukraine. Finally, the days of going to a ticket agent with your passport in hand appear to be gone forever. Unfortunately, e-tickets and paying by credit cards are still not options for train travel.

Aerosvit offers several round­trip daily flights between Kyiv and Odesa, so it was no trouble finding a convenient departure time. I chose Saturday at 11:10 a.m. The round­trip ticket cost $250.

This is a hefty price compared to the cheaper train and bus options, which start at Hr 75 and go up to Hr 350. The major sites are www.autolux.ua, or www.gunsel.com.ua, for bus, both sites with English­language versions, and www.uz.gov.ua for train, a site which does not have an English­language version.

But the air option would have me on Arkadiya beach in Odesa by mid­afternoon Saturday, so I accepted the cost tradeoff this time.

The next hurdle was finding a place to stay. I consider myself a somewhat experienced traveler in Ukraine, so I generally bypass hotels in favor of daily apartment rentals. I googled “Odesa and apartments” and numerous services popped up. A small panic set in when the first six agencies I called said everything was booked for the weekend – a lot of people had the same idea.

I was ready to give up when I hit upon an agency that offered me a basic Soviet two­room apartment for $120 a night. That’s double or triple the price that a savvy, plan­ahead tourist would have paid. But the apartment was only a block  from Deribosovskaya Street, the city’s main drag, plus I was running out of options and time. So I took it, giving the nice stranger my credit card information over the phone, another travel no­no, but it turned out OK. And a ride from the airport only cost $15.

The rest of the trip was delightfully uneventful. I can’t tell you much about how Odesa has changed since the last time I visited, since I and my travel companion settled into a three­day routine of paying Hr 25 to Hr 35 for a cab ride from the center to the Arkadiya beach and back again. The crowds were huge, but we still found a square meter or two to lay our towels on, and room to swim.

Judging from the smell of my clothes afterwards, the Black Sea is not very clean, but I didn’t care.

Another pleasant Odesa surprise is the huge selection of great, moderately priced restaurants. When it comes to eating out, I stick to places that treat me well. I will repeatedly visit the same restaurant if everything is OK. But if I encounter a rude waitress or a single bad meal, I will never visit that place again.

So I ended up eating at only three places in Odesa – Bali Restaurant on Arkadiya beach, City Pizza near the center, and Zara Pizzeria’s sidewalk cafe with a view of the magnificent Odesa Theater. Each place offered great meals for two, costing between Hr 100 and 182.

So, despite being $500 lighter in the wallet apiece, a three­day weekend in Odesa remains one of the better reasons to live in Ukraine.

Источник: http://kyivpost.com