Blogs from Siberia, Russia, Europe - page 4

On Saturday morning we were up early and down to breakfast at 7am.We surprised the staff who weren’t quite ready for us. We checked out and left the hotel about 7-45am and followed signs to Heathrow and eventually to the Rental Car return place. We dropped off the car at Avis and then took the shuttle to Terminal 4 at Heathrow. We were early so had a coffee while we waited for the check in to open and then dropped our bags and headed for security and Passport control. All of this moved pretty swiftly so we had a couple of hours to wait for our flight. We connected to the WiFi and caught up on emails etc, Our Aeroflot flight was due to leave at 11-50am and we boarded early . It was packed with ... read more

You have heard stories of people flying or traveling to the wrong Paris, Texas instead of France. Or Oakland, CA instead of Auckland, NZ. How about Grenada in the Caribbean instead of Granada, Spain? Worse yet, Birmingham, AL instead of Birmingham, England? Another similar name is Dhaka, Bangladesh instead of Dakar, Senegal. Or Ghana instead of Guyana? Or two places I have been, San Jose, CA or San Jose, Costa Rica? Las Vegas, New Mexico instead of Las Vegas, NV? Or even my new hometown of Clovis, CA versus Clovis, NM? My monumental mistake occurred in 2014 while on the Trans Siberian Railway. I stopped in Ekaterinburg, the fateful home of the last Tsar, Nicholas II and his family. After a pleasant two night stay, I taxied to the train station to continue my journey to ... read more

Our next 56 hours were spent living in a small 3 x 4 cell being let out several times to ‘stretch our legs’. Some shared their ‘cell’ with three others. Roisin and I were two of the lucky ones. No, we hadn’t been arrested by the Russian Secret Police for my commentary about ‘Boris’ in my last blog. Although I refer to them as cells, Russian Rail prefers that I call them kupé compartments. There are no bars on the carriage windows but they were sealed shut and with no air conditioning, our ‘cabin’ became very stuffy. Despite this we both got a reasonable night’s rest albeit disturbed by the constant acceleration and deceleration plus what can only be described as ‘changing gears’. Not too sure if trains have gears but every so often the train ... read more

R: To recap; we were in Irkutsk for a single day. It was raining. We were on a tram into the centre of town. It was pretty drab. Most of the roads appeared partially destroyed, and if not, flooded. Richard and I looked at each other, both wanting to maintain a positivity while each wondering what we would do to spend the day here. We made a bee-line for the bus terminal where Marshrutkas collect. We had decided we wanted to see Lake Baikal - the largest and deepest freshwater lake in the world, and is the rift lake where Russia will one day divide. We got to the bus station about 5 minutes before the departure of the next Marshrutka and we quickly found tickets then made it out to the mass of similar looking ... read more

Firstly, Irkutsk (Иpкyтcк) is not to be confused with Yakutsk (Якyтcк). Irkutsk (south of Yakutsk), a vibrant, artsy city dotted with beautiful and fun sculptures was where we spent a lot of our time wandering along the waterfront admiring the Angara River. The city told a story of shiny, golden-domed cathedrals, glittering marble buildings and collapsing wooden houses that were being consumed by permafrost deterioration. Fishermen lined the river banks, while young cadets marched by the war memorial. Vibrant outdoor markets pulsed in the city centre. As we prepared to order food in Russian at the fashionable Irish Pub in the flashy, yet unimaginatively named, 130-Kvartal Neighbourhood, we were pleasantly surprised as to the waiter’s English-speaking ability, and the English menu that he presented to us after he heard us struggling with what to say in ... read more