Cruise calls are on the rise, once again, at Port of Odessa
Cruise calls are on the rise, once again, at Port of Odessa, 13 ship calls bringing circa 13,700 passengers are expected for 2017 compared with only five calls and 1,137 passengers this year.
So far, no new bookings or cancellations have been received, but the hope for the situation to be improved remains.
The most popular tour in Odessa is the half day sightseeing tour, Starting at the famous Prymorsky Boulevard. Its beauty lies in the early 19th century buildings, the shady promenade, the park tumbling towards the sea and the sweep of the Potemkin Steps.
The 193 steps, built between 1837 and 1841, descend from a statue of the Duke de Richelieu in a Roman Toga. At the eastern end a Pushkin statue and a British Tiger Gun, captured in 1854 during the Crimean campaign, stand before the pink and white colonnaded Odessa City Hall.
Further along from the City Hall is the impressive building of the world-known Opera & Ballet Theatre designed by Viennese architects Felner & Gelmer in the 1880s in the Habsburg Baroque style of the day, with a number of Italian Renaissance features.
Continue to the main temple of Odessa and Kherson Diocese – Uspensky Cathedral, and witness its five impressive domes and marvellous interiors.
From the cathedral the tour makes its way along the tree-lined Odessa streets to the Palace of Count Pototsky, housing Odessa Fine Arts Museum. Its maze of over 15 rooms on 2 floors has treasures reflecting the development of national art from icon painting of the 15th century to contemporary painting, graphic art, sculpture, and decorative art. The Museum was inaugurated in 1899 on the initiative of the Odessa Society of Fine Arts and houses one of the largest collections of Russian and Ukrainian masterpieces in the Ukraine.
