Best Trips 2013: Crimea, Ukraine -- National Geographic

Swallow's Nest, Yalta
Photograph by Sergey Fradkov
The neo-Gothic Swallow's Nest castle perches 130 feet above the Black Sea near Yalta in southern Ukraine. Built by a German noble in 1912, the flamboyant seaside residence is now a popular tourist destination.
>> Find out more about what to see and do in Crimea, one of our 20 best trips for 2013
Seaside Cliffs
Photograph by Aliaksandr Mazurkevich, Alamy
Warm, lovely, lush, with a voluptuously carved coast of sparkling cliffs, the Crimean Peninsula is a diamond suspended from the south coast of Ukraine.
Santa Barbara
Photograph by Yuri Kozyrev, NOOR
"There is no winter here," playwright Anton Chekhov wrote to his brother while staying in Crimea. This strip of Black Sea coastline east of Yalta, called Santa Barbara, is popular with families.
Promenade in Yalta
Photograph by Gregor Lengler, laif/Redux
Dusk settles over Yalta, a fashionable resort for Russian nobility in the 19th century, war scorched in the 20th. Winston Churchill, participating in the 1945 conference that reconfigured postwar Europe, called the area the "Riviera of Hades."
Sevastopol
Photograph by Yuri Kozyrev, NOOR
In Sevastopol, women celebrate Navy Day on an overcast July day. The Russian past is firmly rooted in the Crimean city, now part of Ukraine.
Vineyard
Photograph by Q. Sakamakil, Redux
In autumn the air turns soft and it's harvest time at vineyards in Crimea.
Black Sea
Photograph by Yuri Kozyrev, NOOR
Russian tourists take a dip in the Black Sea. Crimea is a popular tourist destination for Ukrainians and foreigners alike.