Due to visit a lady there soon and would welcome any any inside info on apartments (good companies and/or locations), places to see, places to eat out etc, short excursions (are the river trips any good for example) obviously anything with romantic overtones would be good. But any other tips about ,well, anything also much appreciated.
bassuk,
Apts in Zp are difficult to source on the internet however Chris, who frequents this forum, has some on his website www.travel2sevastopol.com and at competitive prices.
Nothing much to see in ZP except perhaps the Cossack show on the island, ZP is on both sides of the river Dnepr, the west side being residential and the city centre on the east side, and the island is in the middle of the river below the dam. Oh the bowling alley can be a good night out but it can be y for a few hundred dollars to go in one evening.
Where to eat, well for the summer months my favourite is sitting out on the veranda at Billy Bones, excellent meat and fish dishes, O'Briens Irish Pub is good, excellent Pepper Steak, there is a place, but best in winter, I don't know how it is spelt but it sounds like Zye-eem-car, a replica Siberian log cabin with meats done over the open flame and a damn budgie in there that doesn't know when to shut up, I presume it's a female budgie :)
There's other places to eat but it's trying to explain names of places, on the east riverfront there are a number of restaurants but it's pot luck if you find the good one, one day there the waiter had to bring me about 6 knives before they sharpened one so I could cut into my meat. But, whatever you do, avoid restaurant 'Mustang'. It's full of US military memorabilia but the food is absolutely crap.
Don't know of any river trips except the one that goes from by Billy Bones to take the old folks up river to their smallholdings, there is a cruise type boat often moored by the est bank restaurants but I think that only goes around the island and comes back again.
If you want to impress the lady then tell her you know that the guy who designed the double-decker bridge out to the island topped himself when he was told that his design was no good and it was only once that he was dead that they realised that his design was good, the bridge has the roadway on level 1 and the railway on level 2.
Flights into ZP are literally once a day from Borispol but that aircraft goes to Ankara and back beforehand so can quite often be delayed, you can also connect from Moscow but 45 minutes up the road from ZP is Dnepropetrovsk airport with 3 flights daily from Borispol, Austrian Airlines daily from Vienna, flights from Moscow and the local airline http://www.dniproavia.com/view.aspx?id=26&lang=2 have all sorts of flights also.
I like using tripadvisor i got good reviews when I went to the Ukraine before reviews made by real travelors
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g298049-d308572-Reviews-In tourist_Hotel_Zaporozhye-Zaporizhzhya.html
I'll be heading there myself in May. My Lady's going to tour me around the city for a few days before we zip off to Crimea. (Speaking of romantic overtones) I'll be watching this one closely.
bass,
Another restaurant that 'must' be done is the Cossack national restaurant on the island, extremely unique decor and pretty good food, the missus took me there for our first date.
After you enter the dining area go past the water wheel, over the little bridge, and up the steps to your right, the balcony tables are nicest set back in 'kind of' alcoves. Make sure that you take UAH cash with you though because you're in the middle of nowhere and they don't take plastic.
With regards to the previous post of hotel reviews I can tell you that the Intourist is perhaps the least worst of the hotels there but I wouldn't recommend it.
P.S. Not too much information I hope bearing in mind that a certain 'prick on a stick' around these parts makes innuendo, as recently as 2 days ago, that I have never set foot in Zaporozhye :)
I have been there only to a club, not really in the city, I was in Dnipropetrovsk and went there only to visit a club, The name is crowbar, the ladies there are very beautiful and eager to talk to foreigners which by the way there are not so many as in Kiev so makes the place more fun, if things go wrong with your lady you can find someone else there for sure, or, even go with her if you are into clubs,
I would love to help more but unfortunatelly this is the only reference I can give you from that city,