Deal doesn’t get much rain but it can cop for occasional heavy snowfall when the rest of the country is clear. We had lived right on this sea front in 1978/79.
A short-break in Oxfordshire
In the days of the Soviet Union, the USSR
We had a very attractive INTOURIST guide, called Natasha, for the two weeks. She was usually office-based but the middle-section to Yalta counted as her holiday, too.
Leningrad reminds you of it’s history and the reconstruction is very thorough. The large diameter down-pipes whcih stopped at shoulder-height were a puzzle, at first, until it was realised this was the height of the winter snow. Guides referred to 25 million lost in the war frequently and to see the newly-weds tour the war memorials for photographs was quite touching. Visiting the home of Peter the Great made some sense of the history studied.
Moscow
A permament memory of Moscow was Marg going out for her usual early morning run. Out on the pavement with the people walking to work with out a care for how she would find her way back to the hotel.
Yalta on the Black Sea
We stayed in an enormous international hotel with swimming pool and private access to the beach. In the distance we could see a beach so full of people they were sun-bathing standing up. We had excellent vegetarian food everywhere, including on the flights.
