We were in Odessa for a day during our Black Sea cruise, and wanted a private or small group tour that would focus on Jewish Heritage in Odessa. I contacted Olga by email about two months before our trip -- she forwarded me several tour and pricing options for the day, and we exchanged emails a number of times during the planning period leading up to our cruise. She was always very responsive and her written (and verbal) command of English was excellent.

It turned out no others from our ship wanted to join, but the price was still very reasonable for just the two of us, and the tour Olga gave us was outstanding, covering general historical sites of Odessa as well as many of the Jewish heritage sites . Although not of Jewish descent herself, Olga's knowledge of Jewish history in Odessa was amazing, and I actually wish I'd had a tape recorder to capture some of the detailed information she shared with us about Jewish history and the development of Zionistic movements in and around Odessa. Most of our tour was designed to be a walking tour, with a car and driver available to get us to a few locations further away from the city center, but when the light rain showers turned steady and cold, Olga arranged to continue using the car to keep us warm and dry in between site stops. The only thing keeping this from being a perfect day was the weather -- we couldn't have asked for a better guide!

We visited the Odessa catacombs with Olga of Odessa Walks. We were on a Celebrity cruise and I can't imagine doing the tour with a large group from a ship in that confined a space. We were a group of only 6 people. Olga is very knowledgeable about WWII events in this area and she made it come alive for us. She also provided quite a bit of information on Ukraine. She also showed us some sights in Odessa that we had missed on our own walking tour.

Olga organized an extra group tour because her first one was full. Eight of us from the Celebrity ship met our guide, Julia, at the dock. We started by walking the famous steps and getting a history of the port. Pastries and coffee followed, then we walked the through more of the city to Hotel Sophie's café for appetizers, continuing past a Tolstoy home, the opera house, Catherine the Great's statue and ended with dumplings. Julia really gave us great stories about the layers of history of the city. Great way to explore the city with interesting Ukrainian eats along the way.