Rested in Massandra a large and friendly company in July 2012. Traveled there by machines. The only difficulty in the way was the passage of the border (we drove there through Kharkov). There were multi-kilometer queues, a very long time was the inspection of cars by Russian border guards. Ukrainian died everyone without inspection, saying "Give this uncle on beer and no documents will not have to fill." And after many hours on the way, the sea finally appeared on the horizon, and the time was already to the sunset, and it was decided to stop in Massandra.
Housing there, I must say, it was very not cheap. Something more or less for an acceptable price did not fit into the concept of comfortable housing, and the normal apartments cost about 800-1000 hryvnia. We removed private apartments near the sea near Massandra, on the so-called boat station. To be more accurate, right behind it. If you look at the photo below. In the center you will see the pension Yalta drowning in the greenery, a little further than it and this station is located.
The houses are on topics there and there is an active construction of neighboring buildings. In general, the people expand. The sake of fairness must be said that construction did not prevent rest.
Our stay in the apartment allowed us to prepare food yourself. And it was a big plus. Since in this place in the step accessibility there was no cafe. The only pizzeria on the territory near the standing sanatorium did not shine a wide menu. The store there was also one and because of this price there were very not low.
Before the Massandra and to Yalta as a whole, it was possible to get on foot, but rather distant. You could still drive on the minibus. But the minibus, for an incomprehensible reason, did not go very often. And the last bus from Yalta went about nine o'clock in the evening, so the walks to the night on the embankments remained only with dreams.
Beach strip narrow. The sea was clean until the beginning of the weekend. On Friday, the businesses of local youth began to pull up, which threw beer banks directly into the water, stumbers, candies from sweets and chips, and other garbage. After the weekend, two more days in itself was cleared, throwing it all ashore. But at the same time, the shore began to resemble a landfill.
However, we were not limited to laying at sea. We visited some of the sights of Crimea. They are all in close proximity to each other, and did not need long-distance and long moves to them. Crimea replete with natural, architectural, historical and cultural monuments
Despite the minuses, I would like to return to the Crimea. But most likely I will choose hotels with private closed beaches.