Advertisement
Published: September 22nd 2012
Edit Blog Post
After many hours of Visa documentation and an hour of waiting at the empty border, we entered into Russia. We first stopped in the former Finnish Town of Vyborg and toured the castle. Then we were off to Saint Petersburg, but we diverted around traffic to take the coast highway for the last 70km. On the first night, we visited the Church of the Saviou on Blood (where Alexander II was assassinated), crossed several canals and arrived in Palace Square facing the Winter Palace and the Hermitage Museum. The next day we would be given a private tour of the city (as we were the only English speaking people left on our tour) including Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, Yusupov Palace (where Rasputin was killed), the St Peter and St Paul Fortress and the Admiralty. We spent the next 3 hours in the Hermitage (part of our 2 day pass - highly recommend you book your tickets here on-line to bypass the line-up), then caught a hydrofoil out to Peterhof Palace and the Grand Cascades. We ran out of cash so had to find alternate transport back and jumped on a private mini-van with the locals and made it to a metro back
into town. We were able to exchange money in town so could go for dinner 😉 Our third day in St. Petersburg included more of the Hermitage and a trip to Catherine's Palace. We just arrived in time to see the famous Amber Room. We also toured around the gardens and saw Alexander's Palace.
We arrived in Moscow by train to glorious sunshine and took the Metro into town to see the Red Square, Kremlin and St. Basil's Cathedral. We crossed over to Old Arabat St which contained the locals clubs, shops, restaurants and biker bars. We were too tired to join in after our long train commute to Moscow. We had another private tour in Moscow including the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, Sparrow Hills, the University, Triumphal Arch and Financial District skyscrapers. Our guide Alexander was quite proud of the Russian achievements. We had a brief stop at the Novodevichy Convent in which we had a walk around the Swan Lake. We finished up at the Bolshoi Theatre and walked over to the Tretyakov Gallery from there. We were very impressed with this art gallery which surpassed the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. We visited some of the
decorated metro stops on the way back and had a vodka tasting session back at the hotel. Our last full day in Russia consisted of a visit to the inside grounds of the Kremlin and Armoury (the latter was a little disappointing). The queuing up, different tickets, security and lacklustre ticket sales people made the whole experience rather difficult. Once inside, we mostly visited the different churches and the gardens (under the careful watch of the guards). We did get to see some Faberge eggs!
Overall it was a fascinating, but intimidating visit to a country that is very different from our own. I'll be sending my remaining blogs for Poland, Italy, Greece and Turkey when we get back home due to the difficulties with internet connections in Europe.
Cheers, Richard and Ann
Advertisement
Tot: 0.176s; Tpl: 0.017s; cc: 8; qc: 24; dbt: 0.1298s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 2;
; mem: 1.1mb