Simferopol is your point of arrival in the Crimea courtesy of airBaltic, so it's worth stopping off in the city on your way to the coast if you get a chance.

It's a relaxed place with some attractive, shady avenues and a strong Tartar influence. The Tartars are descendants of Genghis Khan and subsequent khans (kings), who decided this part of the world was so nice they'd stop conquering the world and settle down. They did just that, ruling a powerful empire that gradually faded over the centuries but adding immeasurably to the culture, architecture and cuisine of Crimea, doing at least as much as the Ukrainians and Russians to give this diamond-shaped land its sparkle.

From Simferopol, you have a choice of two routes to Yalta. Driving, the quickest way takes you via Alushta, or if time isn't important and you want to experience a world record at first hand, you can hop aboard the number 52 trolleybus in Simferopol and look at the view for a couple of hours while you travel the world's longest trolleybus route (82km) including a slow ascent of the mountains and some spectacular sea views. It makes quite a change from a commuter trolleybus into Riga.

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The other way from Simferopol to Yalta is via the Tartar town of Bakhchysaray and, if anything, it is even more impressive. One of Crimea's definite must-see sights is the Khan's Palace at Bakhchysaray, complete with mosque, harem, beautiful gardens and numerous fountains, the most famous of which was immortalised in verse by Pushkin. It's almost like a smaller-scale version of the Alhambra in Granada, only a ticket to the Khan's Palace is much easier to obtain and far cheaper. The call to prayer still goes up from the minaret, summoning Tartar men from the surrounding area who chat and stroll in their famous embroidered skull caps. Just behind the mosque is the small graveyard containing the tombs of the khans, covered in Koranic inscriptions and with strange bulbous shapes sprouting from them like stone thistles.

Within walking distance of Bakhchysaray are several other amazing sights. Orthodox believers will not want to miss the Uspensky Monastery, with its church carved into a sheer cliff face and very much a working monastery to this day. A couple of kilometres further up the valley is Chufut Kale - a haunting mixture of cave dwellings like a human beehive, chapels and fortifications with spectacular views across the surrounding mountains. Its history is as bizarre as its appearance, having served as a fortress, a prisoner of war camp for those unfortunate enough to be captured by the khans, and as the last refuge of a dissident Jewish sect – Chufut Kale means 'Jewish castle'.

The road from Bakhchysaray to Yalta is undoubtedly one of the most spectacular in Europe. It writhes its way up and over the mountains through thick forest via a series of hairpin bends for 50km before suddenly opening up into a stunning panorama of the Black Sea with Yalta far, far below, hemmed in between the white mountains and blue sea.

Despite its century-old reputation as a hangout for the aristocracy and highbrow intellectuals, Yalta today is a brash, in-your-face sort of place. That's certainly true of the main promenade, where holidaymakers stroll up and down from sunrise until the early hours of the next morning past a statue of Lenin on one side who looks rather disapprovingly at a branch of McDonalds on the other.

Party on the Beach

If you're in the mood to party hard, you'll probably not want to wander far from the bars, cafes and restaurants along the sea front, all of them pumping out music from their speakers or employing the services of a local band. Because the climate is so warm, most people eat late and continue their celebrations well into the night, accompanied by regular fireworks displays. An army of street sweepers is mobilized at dawn to remove traces of the previous night’s revels, as the town prepares itself for the next party to begin – and if the number of people enjoying a beer for breakfast is anything to go by, the party starts around 9 o’clock in the morning!

However, traces of the more refined Yalta popularised by the Tsars do still exist. Enter some of the food and wine shops along the promenade and you'll be surprised to see ornate plasterwork and chandeliers hanging from the ceiling – a good place to stop for a coffee and imagine the ball gowns and dress uniforms of years gone by.

Stroll up Darsan Hill past the elegant Villa Elena and the techno beats finally fall silent. As you gain height, you seem to move back in time, first passing the golden domes of the Aleksander Nevsky cathedral and then pretty little villas and holiday homes dating from Chekhov's time – a plaque on one even testifies that he stayed there, and real Chekhov buffs can visit the theatre named in his honour as well as a museum in his former house 3km towards Livadia.

Back on the hill, a broad view across the bay opens up, while pine trees and patches of rosemary release their aromas in the midday sunshine. If all that climbing sounds like too much effort, do it the easy way by taking the dinky little cable car to the top.

Though Yalta was already well-known in the East, what really put it on the world map was the Yalta Conference of 1945 when Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt got together to decide the fate of postwar Europe. In fact the conference didn't take place in Yalta at all, but in the smaller resort of Livadia a few kilometres to the West. Livadia Palace was built as a summer residence of the Tsars and is one of several contrasting palaces along this stretch of coastline. The best way to see them is by boat. Sightseeing trips regularly depart from Yalta a good way to go about it is to sail down to the Vorontsov Palace at Alupka, an eclectic but attractive 19th-century mixture of an English country house and a Moorish villa built by Count Mikhail Vorontsov, the governor of Crimea. This is where Churchill stayed during the Yalta Conference and he must have felt unexpectedly at home – apart from the fact that most English stately homes aren't surrounded by tropical gardens.

On the way back to Yalta you'll pass the Disneyesque Swallow's Nest castle – spectacular to look at but probably not worth a stop – and Livadia Palace itself.

In the other direction, to the east of Yalta, are some smaller, less well-known resorts that are well worth checking out and feature slightly better beaches than Yalta’s grey pebble affair. Alushta isn’t ever going to win any architectural awards, but it’s cheap, cheerful and has some excellent beaches. Look carefully and you can still see how different types of workers were allocated different stretches of beach during the Soviet era when a trip to the Crimean Riviera was one of the highlights of a worker’s life.

Also east of Yalta is the pretty, pedestrianised town of Hurzuf, which also boasts superior beaches. It has a reputation as a more bohemian hangout than the other resorts, with paintings displayed outside artists’ studios and some quaint wooden buildings with rooms for rent – ideal for sitting on the balcony and debating the meaning of life over a bottle of Crimean wine with spicy shashlik. Or just getting a suntan.