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Published: June 29th 2007
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Hi everyone. I know its been a while since I gave an update, however, I am now officially in the middle of nowhere. It is going to be difficult to re-cap the last few weeks, but here goes.
After leaving Rauma, we decided to take a detour to the Aland Islands (pronounced Orwland). The ferry trips were great and we saved 70 pounds by staying overnight. (Some sort of tourist bonus). It just so happened that the Island were Celebrating their independance on this day and so free concerts, tea and cakes were the order of the day. They even have their own flag! There are over 6000 islands here and they are just spectacular. Luckily, we managed to book a ferry from Aland to Turku in good time as all the ferries had been booked by tourists coming from Sweden or returning to Finland from holiday. We did have to stay an extra night though which was excellent. The final push to Helsinki was along the south coast of Finland which is a lovely drive and I was starting to get emotional that it will be the last long drive in 'Big Red' until I return to Estonia
Aland Island2
Tea, Cakes and Flag in August.
The next few days were scheduled to be BIG city hits. Helsinki-Tallin-St.Petersburg-Moscow. Wow what a journey.
Helsinki is beautiful. Very relaxing. Nice people. We stopped on a camp site about 20km west of the city and spent the day in Helsinki before boarding the ferry to Tallin.
All was arranged to meet Albert (a freind of a friend who I have met once before) in Estonia and sure enough, he was there to meet us at the ferry port. The hospitality was superb. Albert and Elona really looked after us for the two days we were there. They had organised a garage for Big Red, the tickets to St.Petersburg and accomodation. Even though Big red was just 2 inches too big to fit in the garage, another spot was arranged straight away. The tour of Tallin was great. Albert certainly knows his stuff about the city and took us all around the old town. Big big thanks to Albert and Elona.
It was a good job the tickets to St.Petersburg were booked as the bus was full. It departed at 11pm on the 14th June as our Visa's for Russia were only valid from
Helsinki
Free concerts 00:01 on 15th June. This was an amazing journey. We crossed the boarder with minimal formality (approx 1 hr delay) at 1.30am and arrived in St.Petersburg at about 6.00am. Our first task was to get some money from a cash machine and then get from the bus station to the hotel via the metro system. Good job I have been learning russian for the last few weeks as this certainly is not an easy task. Matching up the names on the stations to the metro and the map in the cyrilic alphabet is fun. Then finding the direction to walk on the streets without drawing attention to yourself as a tourist from the local police is a mission in itself.
St.Petersburg was simply fantastic. The hotel could not have been placed in a better position. The atmosphere was so cosmopolitan. Capitalism has hit the place in the extreme. All new cars, top of the range. Designer clothes. Big business. The architechture is amazing. The Hermitage full of art. If you stopped and looked at each piece for 1 minute it would take five and a half years to get round the Hermitage. We took a hydrofoil to Peterhof. WOW.
Helsinki
Moomin for Eleanor What a place. The fountains are superb. The Cathedral is unbelievable. I even managed to get a ticket on the door of the Marinski Theatre and went to see Madam Butterfly. Absoluteley breathtaking. Words can not express.
The next journey to Moscow (overnight train) was our first taste of the trans siberian adventure. I slept like a log. Again our transfer to the hotel was all by metro and great fun. The hotel, once again, was spectacular. We took a tour of the Kremlin and treasures. There is our some great pieces of treasure. Golden carriages, dresses, eggs etc...
We then set off from Moscow on our first 24hr train journey to Ekaterinburg meeting up with 4 other British travellers along the way. Jen and Gav, Dave and Stu. They have booked the same tour as us. The first port of call was to find the restaurant car. This had some lovely red stools to sit on next to the bar. Needless to say 24hrs passes very quickly when sat on a bar stool!
In Ekaterinburg, our option was to take a Mountain Bike tour. What a day. We even ended up climbing to the top of
Tallin-Estonia
Me, Albert and Kev a rock to see over the trees of the forest we were biking in. The place is just massive.
The next train (28hrs) took us to Barnaul. This was the start of a 6 day Altai Mountain adventure. 2 days spent rafting some very rough rapids. We have explored caves. Seen rock art from thousands of years ago. I even high wired about 60ft up across a hydro electric power station dam from one side of the river to the other (the price of 6 pound for the experience was probably the most worrying!)
I am now in Novosibirsk.... a very large industrial city. It took a whole day bus journey to get here. Tonight I am heading off on another train (32 hrs long). Can't wait.
I'll write when I can.
Don't work too hard.
Dave.
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Andy Tanner
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Having fun
Hi chaps, I am of course DEAD JEALOUS. Good to see you having a great time, keep up the blogging as and when. At home:- Been on 7 blind dates (and a few follow ups) in last five weeks and closed the biggest account in Europe (3 times my annual sales target in one deal). So much going right here, but I still wish I was there instead. All the very best, Andy