St Petersburg

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So we left on the 5PM Express train to Moscow.
We were seated in 2nd class which was comfortable but oddily spaced. There's 4 classes on the trains in Russia. 1st class looks nearly luxurious in Western European terms with comfortable seating sitting opposite each other with a little table. 2nd class, where we were seated had comfy seats with 3 chairs next to each other facing one way of the train, then the corridor and then another 2 chairs facing the other way. It felt rather anti-social. 3rd class, as we discovered on the way back home was slighly less comfortable but still doable for a 3 hour journey. 4th class we haven't seen yet as it's not present on all trains, but I'm sure this is where wooden benches and chickens in boxes come into the picture.

The view from the train was pretty monotonous with lots of fields, woods and greenery, Only when we entered the suburbs of Moscow the scenery changed into more industry, warehouses, factories and dirty air. I saw people, I take it they were gypsies, living right next to the rail line. They had wooden boxes where the kids were sitting in and they were cooking some food over a bonfire; 2 feet away from a moving train!

We had to cross the road going from the station we arrived at to the station where our train to St. Pete would depart from. It immediately struck me how people are much more European here. The way they dress, hair style, manners, driving, etc. People smile here more often and seem to be slightly nicer and more polite... From the 5 seconds I was in and out of the station, I felt Moscow was buzzing, lots to discover, lots going on.

Our sleeping train to St. Petersburg was ready at the platform and this enormous feeling of adventure came over me!! There were a bunch of young boys in army gear getting on the train, being waved off by their mothers who were sobbing - god knows how long until they would see them again... We got on the train and looked for our coupe and ooooh my goodness were we impressed or what??!!! This was a brand new train and we were obviously seated in the nicest coupe. Everything was nice, clean, new and shiny. (after 2 weeks 1/2 in Russia this is encredible!) There were 4 beds, 2 down and 2 up. The linen was clean and the beds were made. The curtains were pretty and the whole coupe was just cozy. We immediately took our shoes off and got the cards out. With the camera at hand the train started to move in the direction of St. Petersburg. After 5 minutes the lady of our 'wagon' asked if we wanted to drink anything, so a round of tea with lemon arrived. (5p per cup!) The tea was served in the most beautiful cups and the 5 of us felt like little princesses (well, Cedric felt like a prince). Cedric was sleeping in the coupe next to us with 3 other Russian women but he said he didn't mind...

Around 12 o'clock we realised we had to sleep a little because the train would arrive in St. Pete at 5.30AM. My brain was so active and I was so excited about out trip I hardly slept at all. The movement of the train was lovely and drove you to sleep and also the 'beds' were really comfortable. At 4.45AM we had a knock on the door as a wake-up call - I was not impressed!

When we arrived the city was empty. Only people going back home after clubbing were walking on the street but apart from them, the city was desolate. There were hardly any cars, no busses, only the streets were being cleaned by little trucks. We were told to walk down 'Nevski Prospect', the main avenue with apparently beautiful buildings. The walk was about 2,5 km long and we leisurly took our time to fully take in the beauty of the city. It was magical walking around, constantly looking up in the air, admiring the buildings, architecture, churches, passage ways, etc. St. Petersburg is build on water because Peter the Great was obsessed with sailing and water and it was his dream to have a city on the water. And that's just about what this city is. It's a mixture of Venice with its lovely water ways and bridges, combined with the magical architecture and mixture of styles from Vienna. It's gone straight into my top 3 of magical and romantic cities!! I can't remember how often I said 'amai' and 'wauzers' but I'm sure my fellow travellers were getting bored...

The most brilliant things about our trip was definitely being able to walk around in this city so early in the morning. We had a picknick breakfast with a view over the river, way before anybody was properly awake. By 7.30AM we had seen the Winter Palace and its big square in front with not one tourist to be seen. It's amazing looking at my pictures now, all these beautiful sights with noone in the way... I bought the Lonely Planet Guide at 9AM when shops opened so we took it from there. We walked around for miles and hours on end, reading in the guide and finding out more and more things about the history and the hidden spots of this city.

At 4 in the afternoon the 5 of us were short on energy. We decided to go to our Youth hostel which we had found on the internet for GBP 7,50 and have a short nap. The Youth hostel was nice, clean and silent. The typical bunkbeds slept terrific and most importantly, they had HOT SHOWERS!!!! Yeeehaaaa. (Now the weather is a little colder here, it's even tougher taking a cold shower...) I'm sure that after half of hour of standing under the hot water each, there hardly was any water left for anybody else in the Hostel. As Sarah put it so nicely, it was a great feeling having water in your ears again after 2 1/2 weeks!! We fell asleep like children and only woke up to have some dinner, play some cards and then fall asleep again...

The second day of our stay we headed back into town and took the boat to a place outside St. Petersburg called 'Petershof'. Our teachers had advised us to go there - they told us it was the luxurious palace of Peter the Great outside town. I thought it would be difficult being more luxurious than the one in town, but I was proven wrong big style!! Once again it was clear Peter liked his water because I've never seen so many fountains in my entire life. There was gold everywhere, water features, everything was grand and simply amazing. The downside was that there were far to many tourists for my liking. Apparently they had closed the place for 4 days because of the G8 and it was the first day of reopening so half of Russia decided to go. We had another picknick near the water and then decided to take the 'elektritsjka' back into town. 45 minutes on wooden benches and gorgious views outside St. Petersburg kept me awake. There's a massive harbour and lots of not so nice buildings on the outskirts of town but I decided to not see them as to not spoil my magical idea of St. Petersburg.

In the late afternoon we sat down for a well deserved and ice cold beer. I'm very much impressed by Russian beer, really tasty and thirst quenching. I'm not sure how far we've walked in those 2 days but I'm sure it came close to a marathon. Our train back was at 1AM so we found ourselves a really nice looking restaurant - Ukranian - and indulged ourselves in the excellent food. (Ah yes, I forgot to mention I also had Mc Donalds twice this weekend - my body was craving for fatty burgers - a double cheeseburger has never tasted so good before!!)

By 1AM we were knackered - I fell asleep standing. When our train finally arrived we weren't quite sure what had happened to our lovely 'wagon'. No luxury to be seen... We looked inside and saw the same 2 down, 2 up beds with a corridor down the middle but no seperate coupes and definitely no complementary vase of flowers on our table! The difference in price between our ticket here and the ticket back should have given us a slight indication but being absorbed into so much adventure it had gone passed us... We got on the train and luckily we were so tired we didn't struggle falling asleep. And after all, this was even more adventure... Having strange people snoring next to you, behind you, left, right and center and having strange feet dangling at the end of beds, sticking out in the corridor, trying to avoid them on your way to the only loo for 70 people. It was all good - and I slept a lot better than on the way down!

I can't stress enough how wonderful St. Petersburg was and how I'm definitely coming back here to share this experience with Stu. That was the only regret I was having being there, is that I wasn't able to share all this with him... But let me advise you on THE most romantic place to be, head for St. Pete!!

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