Last day in Odessa

A long day to be carefully managed.

Today is going to be one of the “longest” day of my trip. The reason is that tonight my bed will be in the night train to Kiev. This means that starting from around 12:00 I will not have a stable shelter such as hotel or guest house. At least the gracious girl at the hotel informed me that I will be able to use the common areas including the kitchen, the office and the wifi for the entire day and this is really helping. In addition I decide to get out on the streets quite late. I can leave my luggage in the hotel so I plan to get back there in late afternoon before or after dinner. Talking about eating, I really need to have breakfast and a café called “wake up” seems to be more than appropriate. I camp there for almost an hour, having several coffee until the fog decides to leave my head.

A lazy walk in town.

From here I head to the centre to see how is Saturday morning in Odessa. It is full of life. Many people in the streets, in the cafes and in the parks. In City park there is also a “Paprika fest”, a day celebrating Hungary and the smell of Goulash is spreading everywhere. If the centre is already crowded even more people can be found on the Primorsky Boulevard and on the nearby Potëmkin stairs finally open to the public. I was upset the first day when it was closed but in the end now I realise how lucky I was in having the chance of taking pictures of it without people. Today is even difficult to step down. When I see a couple bringing a pram holding it, my mind goes to the Eisenstein movie and the central scene with the pram falling down the stairs. By the way, I need to explain to non Italians and to the the youngest about this obsession about Potemkin stairs. It is not only related to the Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin movie but as well to the parody done in Italy by Paolo Villaggio, a director, actor and writer in his movie Fantozzi. I won’t tell you all the story but I give you the link to the scene of the Italian movie where Potëmkin is mentioned. I keep going on and I reach the Maritime Station (Morskoy Voksal) and I remember that on first day I was offered a one hour cruise on black sea for 100 Hryvnia. Even if the weather is not so good, it could be a good way to spend some time.

Cruise on the black sea.

I’m always scared when I take some excursion on the sea, not because of the sea but because if it is not very exciting, usually I shortly fall asleep. In Oslo I fell asleep right after the boat left the harbour and I woke up when they were doing final docking operations. This one in Odessa would deserve similar behaviour but I drank too much coffee. First of all, from the time I board until the boat starts it takes 45 minutes. After it, there are 5 minutes of the excursion presentation done my a recorded message and then… nothing. For other 55 minutes, I see only harbour infrastructure, other boats, black sea and dark parks, due to the cloudy sky. Nothing more. If I had a blanket and a pillow I would have slept with great pleasure.

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