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Published: August 9th 2007
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Beaune, France
The boys walking through the forest on our walk in Beaune. After we left Italy, we did a self-drive tour for 6 days that took us through Weggis, Switzerland; Beaune, France; and both Baden, Baden and Frankfurt, Germany. Unfortunately, we have very few pictures from those days because our luck finally ran out and we encountered a LOT of rain that week. The scenery through the Alps in Switzerland was magnificent, even if the clouds were swirling all around us - it reminded us of Colorado, of course! We had one sunny day in Beaune which fortunately for us was a day we were scheduled for a 4 ½ mile hike with our guide, Geoff, through the countryside at the end of which we had a wonderful lunch in a small village restaurant. We walked past dozens of vineyards and Geoff gave us a remedial lesson on wine appellations in the Burgundy region - none of which could we repeat to you now!
Baden, Baden is in the Black Forest region of Germany and let me tell you, when it’s hailing in those hills, it is REALLY black! Kind of like driving over Berthoud Pass in a blinding rain storm. When we hit Frankfurt we were pretty tired of the rain, but
it had followed us and we had our city tour with raincoats on and umbrellas positioned. Oh well, we had been very lucky with the weather up till then. It is springtime after all and most of Europe had a very dry winter, so the rain is welcome here.
From Frankfurt we flew to Moscow and finally arrived at Ted’s Number One Trip Destination - Russia!! It’s interesting that to Ted’s and my generation - most of you will relate - Russia is defined for us by 80-odd years of Soviet rule - from the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution to the end of the communist rule in 1991 - but of course Russia has a very long history of imperial rule by the various Russian tsars and tsarinas. We spent 3 days in Moscow and received a crash course on imperial Russian history from our guide Natalia - did we ever learn any of this stuff in school? Peter the Great, Ivan the Terrible, Catherine the Great - all these names are familiar to us, but who are these people? We could tell you more about them now! Plus we visited Red Square and the Kremlin and several churches and cathedrals
St. Basil's Cathedral
St. Basil's Cathedral -- a Russian orthodox church of Byzantine style, built in Red Square, Moscow, between 1555-1560 . After Moscow we headed to St. Petersburg (known as Leningrad from 1924-1991), founded by Peter the Great in 1703 and the capital of Russia for more than 200 years, until after the Russian Revolution. Peter the Great, who apparently wasn’t so great (nor was Ivan the Terrible at all terrible!) according to historians, ruled Russia as emperor from 1682 till his death in 1725 at the age of 52. He was responsible for most of the “westernization” of Russia as he spent some years living in western Europe and enjoyed the lifestyle there. St. Petersburg was built on the swampy marshes of the Gulf of Finland and remains today an important port of the region. Again, we had 3 days and with our guide Olga, we visited the Peter and Paul Fortress, several cathedrals and Yusupov Palace where Rasputin was murdered. On our own, we spent several hours in the collections of the world-famous Hermitage Museum. It’s a beautiful city with a proud heritage, especially regarding the 900 day siege during WWII, and we filled ourselves with as much of it as we could in the short time we had there.
The Russian people are very interesting. We were struck
St. Petersburg, Russia
The Neva River in St. Petersburg. by the serious nature of most everyone we encountered. Our guide Natalia told us Russians would know we were foreigners by how much we smile when talking to each other. Life here during the communist regime wasn’t easy for many different reasons, but life following the fall of the communist regime has not been easy either. But for the younger generation at least, there appears to be no regret to the change. They are enjoying the freedoms they have and are all working hard to have the lifestyles of their western European counterparts. Hopefully the economic situation will equalize over time. And also hopefully any talk of a “Second Cold War” between the U.S. and Russia will be just that - talk. Although Putin will be leaving office in the next year or so, due to his immense popularity here, his attitude toward the U.S. government is strongly reflected in the Russian population and will most likely be continued with his successor.
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Carla
non-member comment
Hey
Even though it was raining the pictures are still wonderful. I would love to go to Russia - it sounds great!! Cya soon!!!