Jan 11, 2019 - St Petersburg - last day!

Friday 11th: Our last day! After the big day yesterday we had a late breakfast at Janno and packed our cases so they could be moved to the family suite. Then we headed out to explore as much more as we could. In a large store across the road we purchased a gift and a lovely replica of a Faberge egg with a small clock inside. In Nevsky Prospekt we spent a few minutes in the vast Kazan Cathedral designed to resemble St Peter’s in Rome with a sweeping curved colonnade. The interior is spacious but somewhat dark but quite a lot of people were...

Jan 10, 2019 - St Petersburg

Thursday 10th: Snow, snow and more snow!! Breakfast was next door at Janno and then we walked around to the Church of the Resurrection of Christ “On Spilled Blood”. It is named so because the site is the exact spot where Tsar Alexander II was assassinated and the Romanovs built this nostalgic typically Russian medieval church in his honour. The whole exterior was beautiful with its gilded and colourful domes and mosaics but we were too early for the opening so we headed on to Nevsky Prospekt. We walked up a few blocks before turning back to...

Jan 9, 2019 - St Petersburg - on our own

Wednesday 9th: Our time with the group ended this morning. Those continuing on to Finland were collected at 9am and we waved them goodbye from the hotel steps in the snow. We had enjoyed the company of many but especially Barb and Irene and it was sad to see them go. On our own again, we then took a taxi to Pushkin INN not far away where our room was ready for us so we settled in. The staff at reception were extremely friendly and helpful when we asked if we could keep our room until 8pm on the day we departed. Although our room would not...

Jan 8, 2019 - Saint Petersburg

Tuesday 8th: St Petersburg is proving to be a stunning city, crowded with splendid palaces, impressive historical monuments, wide boulevards and beautiful bridges. It is magnificent by day and magical by night. It is also renowned as the Ballet Capital of the World. The Hermitage Museum, the former Winter Palace of the Tsars, was our first port of call today. This is one of the largest museums in the world and houses the royal art collection of over three million works. An early entry was arranged for our group and we moved straight to the...

Jan 7, 2019 - Russian Christmas in St Petersburg

Monday 7th: Rozhdestvo - Russian Christmas. Our final stop on the Golden Eagle is St Petersburg and we arrived during breakfast. Then it was straight onto the coach for visit to Catherine’s Palace at Pushkin. As it was still early (and dark!) we first drove around some of St Petersburg marvelling at how beautiful it looked dressed up in all its lights. The Catherine Palace was built by Elizabeth I, Peter the Great’s daughter, in honour of her mother Catherine I and she spared no expense. The palace was extensively damaged during WW2 but...

Jan 6, 2019 - Petrozavodsk

Sunday 6th: Petrozavodsk stretches along the western shore of Lake Onega - the second largest lake in Europe. It is one of the major cultural and industrial centres of the North-West of Russia and is the capital of the Republic of Karelia. We took a city tour which started with the cultural museum of the area. Here a Russian lady guided us through some exhibits and was translated by our guide. She was very passionate about all the painters and showed us in detail how Russian icons are made. In the building next door was a small theatre...

Jan 5, 2019 - Golden Eagle Train

Saturday 5th: The bus was ready to go at 7.45 this morning after an early breakfast. We had to negotiate our way back across the border to Russia which involved presenting our passports at four separate places, carrying all our belongings in to the Russian border control and standing around for two hours while everyone was processed - more or less the opposite of the way over. In the process we had to set watches forward two hours so it was 1.30pm when we reached the train at Nikel. The journey south began straight away and so did lunch...

Jan 2, 2019 - Murmansk

Wednesday 2nd: Our train continued on to Murmansk, a city halfway between Moscow and the North Pole, and 120 miles north of the Arctic Circle. It is now the main city of the Kola Peninsula but started as a tiny settlement and Arctic trading post. Thanks to the influence of the Gulf Stream, the port is ice-free year-round. It is also the homeport of Russia’s nuclear-powered icebreakers which maintain passageways for all Arctic cargo vessels. Our guide collected us from the train at 2pm from Kola and we drove straight to Murmansk to visit...

Jan 1, 2019 - A day on the Golden Eagle

Tuesday 1st: New Year’s Day! Today we had a very relaxed start to the New Year with brunch running through till midday so we did not surface early. The landscape outside our window hardly changed all day - snow covered forests interspersed with snow covered little villages, railway stations and trains. We even saw one train carrying two decks of cars all of which were covered in snow. At 1.30 the Astronomy Professor from Cambridge gave a lecture on the Auroras which was very interesting. Afternoon tea was at 4.00 and then up to ten people...

Dec 31, 2018 - Vladimir and Suzdal

Monday 31st: New Year’s Eve. Vladimir & Suzdal: When we woke we were in Vladimir and straight after breakfast we were on the bus to Suzdal with our guide, Anna. Suzdal is one of Russia’s most perfectly preserved walled cities dating back to 1024, located 35 kilometres from Vladimir. Here we visited the atmospheric St Euthymius Monastery built like a small kremlin with walls all around and a convent for rich Russian women. Then we walked a short distance to a museum of wooden churches and buildings. The best examples of these were...

Dec 30, 2018 - Moscow

Sunday 30th: Our guide for the day, Lydia, met us at 8.15 and we set off by bus to the Kremlin even though the hotel was right beside one wall. The weather had changed completely from yesterday - gone were the sunshine and blue skies and it was much colder. Light snow fell all day. The first stop inside the Kremlin was the Armoury where we were allowed in an hour earlier and had it all to ourselves. Lydia explained all the main exhibits and we were all agog at the opulence of the treasures there, mainly from Tsarist times and far more than...

Dec 29, 2018 - Moscow

Saturday 29th: Beth and Bob, our group leaders from Travel Masters, had arranged for a professor whom they knew from one of the universities to give a lecture about Russia today. Ludmilla spoke about the first half of her life under Soviet rule and the second half since 1991 under the Russian Federation. She spoke with great feeling and gave us great insights into the everyday Russia that you don’t often get as a tourist. Then a few of us set out for Red Square just around the corner. It was still not quite light and the illuminations were...