Pierre Thuilier, The Isle of Reunion , September 2009
Gratitude to the direction of the agency BA
Hello, BA manager Oksana,
I would like to thank you and your agency for the help which you brought us during our meeting, Irina and me, that it is for the accommodation and  for the organization with the assistance of Karina, our interpreter, very kind, patient and full of resources.
I would like to express my attitude to the professionalism of your agency and to the quality of services offered to make easier, to live up and to favor the holding of my visit.

  THUILIER Pierre

Arrival in Kiev. Accommodation. Kreshchatik - the main street of Kiev with more than 200 years of history. It reflected the sense and gist of the epoch when it was created.

Excursion around the city. St.Sophia cathedral. The grandiose ensemble was built by Prince Yarosav the Wise in the 11^th century in commemoration of the victory over the Pecheneg tribe. It's thirteen gorgeous domes nicely blend with the city skyline. The cathedral became a major cultural and political center of Kyivan Rus and the site for receiving ambassadors from many countires. St.Sophia is famous for its outstanding mosaics and frescoes dating back to the 11^th century. In a short distance you see St.Michael Golden Dome Cathedral - the completely reconstructed, one of the most beautiful in Ukraine, famous for its rich and tragic history. After walk down Michailovskaya street, you get to St.Andrew's Descent - the heart of ancient Kiev. Old Kiev Hill - the place of the city foundation. St. Andrew's Church - a unique masterpiece of Bartolomeo Rastrelli and Andrew's Descent Street, that is museum in itself - all form a marvelous architectural composition of the old city.

Visit to the National Kiev-Pechersk Caves' Monastery Historical and Cultural Reserve. The Monastery was set up in the mid 11 century AD. It is one of the most ancient monasteries on the territory of Eastern Slavonic states. During the tour you will see undeground labyrinths of caves with mummies of monks, Museum of Treasure displaying the rich Scythian Gold collection and collection of the Judaic ritual silver objects 18^th-19^th centuries, Museum of Microminiature. The reserve is situated on the picturesque hills and from sightseeing place of Bell Tower you will have opportunity to delight the view over the Gold-Doomed monastery complex and marvelous banks of Dnipro river.
Departure to Sempheropol

Arrival to Yalta. Accommodation. Excursion around the city. Yalta - the pearl of Southern coast of Crimea. The abundance of a sunlight and heat, tender sea and magnificent luxuriant greenery create favourable conditions for tourism, recreation and treatment.
White Livadia Palace. Among wonderful South coast's corners Livadia is the most popular. It attracts your attention not only by the elegent strictness of the palace's buildings in former summer imperial residence but also by magnificient park-the creation of the masters of the garden park architecture.
In February 1945 in Livadia palace there was the Crimean ( Yalta) conference of the leaders of three states: USSR, USA and Great Britain. On this conference the destiny of post-was peace was decided.
During this excursion you can acquaint with Livadia history, palaces' building, wish staying of imperial family in Livadia, with a history of sanatorium Livadia, with the Crimeas (Yalta) conference of the leaders of the great states.

Vorontsov Palace. One of the most entertaining and gorgeous building, where incongruous architectural styles meet: English Romantic, Scottish, Arabian. Somehow, these styles get along and the palace echoes the capricious shapes of its mountain backdrop. The most exotic palace-gardens complex on the entire coast is located in Alupka, about 16 km west of Yalta.
Designed and built between 1828 and 1846 by English architects for the English-educated Count Mikhail Vorontsov, the immensely rich regional governor, the palace is a combination of Scottish castle on its landlord side, and Arabic fantasy facing the sea.
The garden is a masterpiece of landscape architecture. It includes a dense artificial forest, filled with enormous boulders that during the ages have fallen from the cliffs in odd shapes and lodged in positions which the landscape artist has utilized in an ingenious and artistic manner. There are said to be 1,140,000 plants. Every tree was planted by hand and 127 varieties are represented.
Visit to Nikitsky Botanical Gardens.
The gardens, founded in 1812, hold 28,000 species and varieties, including 2000 types of rose. Due to subtropical climate, there are many plants from Mediterranean coast, Middle Eastern countries, Japan, Northern and Southern America. Many of the trees and plants adorning the parks and gardens of Crimea originated here.

Full day tour. Balaklava-Sebastopol-Khersoness
You will have a chance to get to once secret harbour Balaklava with its maintenance bays for submarines built inside in the mountain ( if you're a scuba diver, one of the local centres offers a dive through the underwater tunnel into the maintenance cave, now no longer used ).Balklava is equally famous at the base from which the British, French and Turkish allies launched their siege of Sevastopol during the Crimean War.
For years the town of Sevastopol was closed to foreigners even to Ukrainians who couldn't show that they had a good reason for going there. Sevastopol was the home of the Soviet Black Sea fleet, and at the height of the cold war the town was definitely off the limits to western tourists. Now Sevastopol welcomes visitors.
Khersoness. The ancient Greeks established colonies on the Crimean coast in the 6th century B.C. Founded in 422 BC, Chersonesus witnessed wars, trade based prosperity, absorption into the Roman then Byzantine empires, nomad attacks, and capture in 988 AD by Volodimir of Kiev. The town was finally ruined by the Tatars in the late 14th century.

Bakhchisaray palace. The small town of Bakhchisaray brings you face to face with the Tatar era of Crimean's past. From the 15th century until 1783, Bakhchisaray was the seat of the Crimean khans, the last westward bastion of the descendants of Jenghiz Khan 's hordes. From 1475, Crimean tatars were vassals of the Ottoman Empire. Inside the main mosque, which dated from 1740, there is a nice wooden minbar (pulpit) and carved mihrabs (prayer niches facing Mecca). The carved wooden balcony was for women only. In the back garden behind the palace is the harem, three rooms decorated with cushioned seats and carpets, with prettily painted walls and stained glass windows.
A fascinating historical museum contains 12 rooms with a variety of exhibits covering Tatar culture and the life of khans, including textiles, furnishings, glassware, documents and old photos. The limestone escarpments around Bakhchisarai are riddled with caves, which served as home to neolithic inhabitants long before the first recorded settlements. The remains of Chufut-Kaleh (`Jewish fortress') lie at the head of a steep-sided valley on the outskirts of Bakhchisarai, about a mile's walk from the Khan's Palace. It's a combination of caves and the ruins of buildings which were built around and above them.
Departure to Kiev.

Arrival in Kiev. Departure.