Trans-siberian stage 1 : Moscow - Vladimir (& on to Suzdal)

---

Before I start, I'd just like to say: I LOVE MY RUCKSACK! I think that one of the last things that some of you heard me say in London was along the lines of "I hate this f-ing bag" but now I'm used to it and have got rid of the extra "day bag" as well as ditching a few things before we left London I am liking my new home very much.

Train #1: the 120 from Moscow to Vladimir

So, our first trans-siberian train journey was a miniscule 2.5 hours on train number 120 and very pleasant it was too! It was so short that we didn't take any photos but we were sat in a nice clean airy 6 seat compartment and to our surprise (for we had not requested this with our naughty travel agent) we had "services" included: essentially a little packed lunch sitting waiting for us.

As we were arriving in the evening and hadn't booked accommodation we'd decided to stay in Vladimir for the 2 nights and take a day trip to Suzdal rather than try to find the right bus and find somewhere to stay in Suzdal. We were fairly confident that it would all be ok as our guide book showed a well placed "Hotel Vladimir" just meters from the station. It was about 500meters away and easy to find. Hurray! The only slight downside was that it was up a steep 500m hill. But we battled on and arrived panting and sweating and checked into a fairly standard double room. It was nice to have a private room after the hostel in Moscow and we used the opportunity to do a spot of laundry. Helen, you were right about those pegless washing lines - great stuff! Unfortunately we seem to have lost the extra one you gave us. No idea where it went!

Vladimir itself was a pretty small town where English is not widely known so we struggled with ordering food a fair bit. Luckily the local burger place had pictures on the menu and food names that translated fairly easily once we de-coded the cyrillic e.g. салад = salad; казеофнл фре = kartofel fri so we didn't quite starve.

Suzdal

Suzdal was the reason for stopping off at Vladimir. The guide book spoke of a quintessential Russian village with old wooden houses and more Churches than you can wave a stick at. It was right. We managed to book ourselves a return bus ticket, speaking entirely in mono-syllabic Russian and with the nice lady writing the price down for us and off we went. We spent the day wandering around this nice little village gawping at churches and the occasional tourist horse & cart thingy. The scenery was stunning as you can see from the photos and it was propper scorchio with hardly a cloud in the sky. Nice! We were glad we'd not stayed there though as I have no idea what we would have done on the 2nd day after walking round the whole place on the first day. I suppose this is where the GKT (?) tourist complex would have come in handy. It's a youth hostel on the outskirts equipped with bowling alley and karaoke bar. Sadly(?) we did not get to see this gem.

Next stop was Yeketerinburg..

---