Duration: approx. 4 hours

Your tour begins with a coach drive from the port of Yalta to the famous Neo-Gothic Swallow’s Nest castle near the spa town of Gaspra for a photo stop. The whimsical turreted castle was finished in 1912 and is perched precariously at the edge of a 40-metre cliff. The next stop on your tour is Alupka Palace near the seaside town of Alupka in southern Ukraine. Formerly known as Vorontsov Palace, the magnificent complex was completed in the mid-19^th century. Designed by the same English architect involved in the design of Buckingham Palace, Alupka Palace features an English Tudor-style exterior and boasts a rich collection of paintings and sculptures. It was also the place that Winston Churchill and the British delegation stayed during the Yalta Conference in 1945. Your tour ends with your return to the port.

Your half-day excursion begins with a coach drive from the port of Yalta to Massandra and the elegant, Baroque-style Palace of Alexander III, which was historically used to welcome the Russian Romanov dynasty. The Palace is particularly celebrated for its sumptuous décor and exquisite furniture, a fascinating collection of documents and photographs as well as beautiful gardens, which are open to visitors and well worth exploring. The second part of the tour will take you to Livadia Palace – which is also known as the “White Palace”. Once used as a summer retreat of the last Russian tsar, Nicholas II, the Palace’s most recent claim to fame was as the location of the momentous 1945 Yalta Conference, which served to decide the future of Europe at the end of WWII. Your return to the port and your ship brings the excursion to a close.