The Naberezhnaya is Yalta's central artery and its social heart. Palm trees line the wide promenade that runs along the waterfront, ferries and hydrofoils depart from the central pier for coastal resorts, and every café table fills by mid-morning in summer. It is where you go to see and be seen, to eat an ice cream and watch the Black Sea, to arrange a boat trip or simply to enjoy the remarkable fact that you are in a subtropical resort on the edge of Ukraine.
The embankment was laid out in the late 19th century when Yalta became fashionable with the Russian aristocracy and intelligentsia. The architecture behind it is a cheerful mix of tsarist-era villas, Soviet sanatoriums, and newer hotels. Walk east toward the lighthouse or west toward the small yacht harbor; both directions reward an hour's strolling. In the evening the promenade fills with families, musicians, and vendors, and the lights of the hotels reflect in the harbor.