Published: September 9th 2011Europe » Ukraine » Kiev September 9th 2011
Before I forget, video diary 3: &feature=youtube_gdata
And video diary 4 (which is my personal favourite!): &feature=youtube_gdata
So yes, St Petersburg was beautiful. We wandered around the city to see all the famous churches etc and went round the Hermitage. We managed to see quite a lot of it I think. By the end we had very sore feet and felt all cultured out. I particularly enjoyed the State Rooms and the 19th & 20th Century art. We also met some guys who had bought a bus from an old people's home and taken out the seats and put in bunk beds and a sofa and were driving it from London to Bankok! Which is pretty darn cool.
We then got a train at 2:40 am back to Moscow, because we couldn't go straight from St Petersburg to Kiev because the trains go through Belarus and you need a transit visa to go there, which we didn't have.
So then we spent a day wandering round Moscow again, having left our luggage at the station's left luggage. We did a metro station tour, as the stations in Moscow are beautiful[/]. Then we went to the Art Muzeon Statue Park, which I loved but I don't think Ralph was too impressed with! Then we sat in Starbucks until our train to Kiev at 11pm.
We arrived in Kiev this morning and spent an annoying 2 hours trying to figure out how to buy our tickets on to Budapest, which we eventually managed. Then we headed on to the hostel, showered and headed out to the city. We went on a free walking tour, since we figured we only had this one afternoon here and that would be a good way to see some of the sights. We had an odd collection of people on the tour which made it quite interesting!
We then went to to dinner with a British guy who we met on the tour. We went to a traditional Ukrainian place, and I had a chicken kiev, in Kiev! Or as the menu described it, "legendary Kiev style cutlet". Turns out he's a translator, and has done english teaching in the past, so we mostly grilled him about those! Poor chap.
Tomorrow morning we get the train to Budapest, which is a 24 hour train. Bleargh. So our stay in Kiev has been short and sweet. It would be really nice to come back and spend longer here, because it's a gorgeous city.
When I started this thing I was a 20 year old Spanish and Italian student from the UK, spending 9 months in Paraguay with various adventures planned to the surrounding countries! I then went to Italy for a bit to try and remember how to speak Italian before my final year of uni.
Now, I am a 24 year old "adult" (allegedly) who will be spending 4 months doing the whole 'trans-siberia' thing getting the train home from China. Yay!... full info
Ukraine was the center of the first Slavic state, Kievan Rus, which during the 10th and 11th centuries was the largest and most powerful state in Europe. Weakened by internecine quarrels and Mongol invasions, Kievan Rus was incorporated into the Gran...more info
The text and photos of this article remain the copyright of the Author (Sopho). Under no circumstances should the photos or text be used without the express written permission of the Author (Sopho). If you wish to use or publish photos or text from this article - please