Voyages of Discovery – The Black Sea
By Tin Thomas
*originally published in Cruise and Travel Lifestyles Spring/Summer 2011
The English poet Alfred Lord Tennyson captured that moment during the Battle of Balaclava in 1854, in one of the great epic poems of that era: The Charge of the Light Brigade. The charge was one of the more spectacular blunders in British military history and at the same time one of the most glorious chapters in a war in which none of the combatant nations could have taken pride.
As fractious generals argued and quarreled – nobility and landed gentry all, as was the custom in the army of those days – misunderstandings and muddled orders led to some 600 men of the Light Brigade armed with swords mounting a head-on charge at firmly established Russian field gun positions, protected on each flank by a well trained army of more than 5,000 men.
It was madness but ‘The Noble Six Hundred’, as Tennyson called them, rode into military annals and their sacrificial bravery became the most famous cavalry charge in history: “Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die”, as the poem said. Against all odds they captured the guns… but lacking support, were forced to withdraw:
They that had fought so well
Came thro’ the jaws of Death
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.
The brigade took almost 50 percent casualties.
As I stood, 156 years later, on Sapoune Ridge, standing on the spot where British Army commander Lord Raglan watched the drama unfold, it was hard to imagine this as a battlefield. As far as the eye could see, these shallow valleys outside the city of Balaclava were blanketed by rolling vineyards. Where armies clashed, some of the Crimea’s finest sparkling wine is now harvested.
The Charge is a scrap of history lodged forever in my mind by that poem committed to memory in high school and it was a thrill to see the place where it happened.
This is a feeling I suspect many guests who sail on Voyages of Discovery’s mv Discovery get, constantly. For this is the purpose of this one-ship cruise line dedicated to bringing vignettes of the past like this to life for its guests, whisking them to beacons of history in Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, the Caribbean and the Orient.
It was to offer experiences such as we enjoyed on the Black Sea that Voyages of Discovery acquired mv Discovery in 2001, guaranteeing a new lease on life for one of the most loved cruise ships of the modern era; she was formerly operated by Princess Cruises as Island Princess, one of two ships used as the original Love Boat in the popular TV series which did so much to promote cruising as a vacation style.
At only 21,186-grt and carrying 710 guests, Discovery is small by modern standards but this makes her ideal for exploring small ports rarely visited by today’s big ships. Comfortable staterooms and public rooms are very much a throw-back to the old style of ship, but Discovery has acquired a loyal following who love this type of educational cruise to unusual places supported by well informed talks by authoritative speakers.
Like most ships, Discovery has, on Bridge Deck forward, a wall of plaques presented during maiden port visits. Discovery has amassed a particularly fascinating collection that commemorate the world-spanning trips she has made over the years – the Azores, Cork, Corunna, the Port of Otago, Pago Pago, Valparaiso, Tristan de Cunha, Hiroshima and Milford Haven are a few.
Dinner is served in two sittings in the Seven Continents Dining room, always with a choice for every course and the service, from a Filipino crew, was excellent, as it was throughout the ship. The dining room has a wallet-friendly wine list, well chosen with a broad choice of wines from most major wine producing countries. Prices, both here and in the various bars, were some of the most reasonable I’ve found aboard ship. An unusual feature created by the need to provide a lido-type restaurant for buffet meals is that one of the swimming pools, which has a sliding glass roof, is now part and parcel of that casual restaurant. Dining poolside in fact! There is also an alternative restaurant, The Yacht Club, which has ocean views on three sides; reservations are required for dinner but there is no extra charge.
The ship has a shopping center, an internet lounge, a library that is well stocked, particularly with reference books pertinent to the region being visited, and the two-deck-high Spa Atlantis and fitness center where, again, prices are reasonable. There is a variety of entertainment and lectures in the Carousel Lounge – the ship’s show lounge – and the Discovery Lounge, which has a lovely two-deck high wall of glass looking out onto the aft deck.
Our cruise began and ended in Istanbul, a huge, bewildering and exciting city of more than 13 million people, located half in Europe, half in Asia and our ship spent two nights there to allow guests an opportunity to see such landmarks as Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque and the amazing Covered Bazaar.
In Trabzon, an ancient town built on the old caravan route between Asia and Europe, we visited the home of Kemal Ataturk, father of the modern Turkey, and the 13th century Hagia Sophia, much smaller than its namesake in Istanbul and whose interior is decorated with some fine examples of Byzantine frescoes depicting the life of Christ.
In Sochi, one of Russia’s most popular spa destinations, we toured the summer dacha of Joseph Stalin, built in the 1930s and preserved as a museum with the former Soviet leader’s uniformed avatar forever sitting at his desk, a forbidding figure clutching his ever present, still smoking pipe.
Sochi is spending some US$12 billion on facilities for the 2014 Winter Olympics, twice the estimated cost of last year’s Vancouver games. The main center will be close to Sochi but the Alpine and Nordic events will be staged inland at Krasnaya Polyana, controversially because this mountain site is in a region of great natural beauty which is a buffer zone for the Caucasus Biosphere Reserve and Sochi National Park. The hill chosen for Olympic competition stands in the heart of some breathtaking scenery where our shore excursion from Discovery enjoyed lunch. It looks certain to become one of the most exciting ski destinations in eastern Europe.
Hopefully the Olympics will cause Russia to change its visa policy for visitors. On this call to Sochi – as with Baltic Sea cruises calling at St. Petersburg – cruise ship guests were not permitted to go ashore on their own unless they had purchased an expensive Russian visa well before the cruise. Only those traveling with groups organized by the ship could leave the ship.
It’s a shame that visitors cannot explore the attractive city of Sochi on their own. Its many health spas already attract some two million visitors a year and located on the same latitude as Toronto and Nice, Sochi has the most northern sub-tropical climate in the world.
It was some 247 nautical miles to the west of Sochi, in Yalta’s Livadia Palace on the Crimean Peninsula, that Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt met in 1945 for a conference that had the dire result of carving up the map of Europe and creating the Soviet ‘empire’. Just along the coast is Alupka Castle, a palatial Tudor-style building with Scottish baronial touches and surrounded by English oaks. The British delegation to the Yalta Conference stayed here, Churchill sleeping in the Chinese Room where he arrived to find a box of his favorite cigars bedside and a copy of a book he was currently reading at home.
“Ah…” he said. “Soviet Intelligence at work.”
In Ukraine and Crimea Discovery’s guests had plenty of freedom to go ashore at intriguing Yalta, Sevastopol and Odessa. The 19th Century’s Crimean War came vividly to life in and around Sevastopol, site of an 11-month siege by British, French and Turkish forces which has been captured brilliantly by Russian war artist F. Roubaud in a spectacular panorama, a 360-degree combination painting and relief model that mirrors one moment in time during the height of the fighting on June 18, 1855.
This amazing work is housed in a tower on Historical Boulevard on Malakhov Hill, one of the city’s bastions. Sevastopol is often called ‘The City of Memorials’ – there are some 2,000 of them and local guides are primed to tell a thousand stories of war and siege and bloodshed along this lovely stretch of coast.
Ruled at various times by more than a dozen different invaders Crimea is now an autonomous republic under the jurisdiction of Ukraine.
Black Sea cruises are surprisingly difficult to find. It’s a region that has not attracted a great deal of attention from cruise lines, has a limited number of ports suitable for cruise calls – but ideal for Discovery – and is packed with history. And in weather like we had while on Discovery, these are superb cruising waters. The ship is literally covering the globe on her 2011 itineraries and guests with a lively interest in history are in for some fascinating times.
