The cave towns of Crimea are a unique and fascinating phenomenon of this region of the world. Located in the southwest corner of Crimea, they are a series of naturally formed limestone caves which were expanded and strengthened for use as dwellings and fortresses during the Middle Ages by various tribal groups. In many cases little is known about the inhabitants of these cave towns other than the approximate years of occupation. There are many separate locations you can visit scattered throughout the area, among them Chufut-Kale, Tepe-Kermen, Kyz-Kule, and Eski-Kermen. We chose to visit the caves of Eski-Kermen.
(Black Sea coastline heading up into the Crimean Mountains)
You can find day-trip excursion tickets at any of several locations in Yalta for about twenty dollars U.S. per person as we did. We boarded our mini-bus with about fifteen other travelers around 9 a.m. and settled in for the ride heading west along the Black Sea coast from Yalta. It’s always a beautiful drive, particularly so when the sun is shining as it did the day we went. To our left the sun sparkled on the rippling blue waters of the Black Sea, to our right reared the rugged cliffs and rock faces of the Crimean Mountains, while all around us were heavily forested hillsides of deep green.
Continue reading “Eski-Kermen(part 1)”
