Jun 26, 2011 - Siege of Leningrad, St.Petersburg, Russia

Our initial fears about St Petersburg diminishing Skye had arranged to have a tour with guide(Valentin) to the Siege of Leningrad monument and museum.The city is in big decay with buildings and roads in some poor state.Non the less we marched off with our guide Valentin to catch the metro.Now in all my years travelling I have not seen so many people with black eyes.cut faces and clearly intoxicated and this is around lunchtime.Nobody bothers you so its mostly your perception of things.Take precautions and its fine.Says me who was clearly...

Jun 26, 2011 - Siege of Leningrad Tour, St.Petersburg, Russia

We had our tour cancelled this morning due to our tour guide unexpectedly having to go to Moscow. Instead we had a graduate uni student take us out, which was quite pleasant. Valentine had great enthusiasm for his history and pride of the strength of the people. It was a great insight to the way of life, the struggle of old and new. He focused of the siege taking us to a memorial to those who fell, it lasted from September 1941 to 1944. By the end of the siege, some 632,000 people are thought to have died with nearly 4,000 people from...

Jun 25, 2011 - Train to St.Petersburg, Russia

Slept well last night and was after 9.00 when awoke .Skye also stirred at this time and commented on a lovely sleep.Today was packing and cleaning up as we have to be at the Central station by 3.00pm.Out by 12.00 with time to kill we decided to catch up some computer time.Time went by and it was suddenly 2.00 pm.Quickly moving out to the tram stop we had to wait 15 minutes for the tram.Another 10 minutes to the station and its now 3.30. I'm having a fit stressing out like you would not believe.Rushing along to get our seat allocation we...

May 28, 2011 - St. Petersburg, Russia day 1

The day of 3 tours. First one was to the Hermitage Museum. Max was our guide. The basic display areas of the State Hermitage occupy 365 rooms in the Main Museum Complex located in the historic center of St Petersburg. This consists of six buildings constructed in the 18th and 19th centuries, among which the most important is the Winter Palace, the former imperial residence. The Winter Palace, the Small Hermitage, the Old Hermitage and the New Hermitage display the collections of monuments of culture and art of the ancient world, Western...

Jan 30, 2011 - 30/01/11 fine art maze

i recieved my train ticket to moscow which left at 10pm.unfortunatley i had to check out ofhe hotel by 12although i could leave my big backpack there and collect it later. my first thing to do was locate the train station i had been directed to so that i wouldnt have to search for it in the dark with my big bag. the station i had been directed to did not seem right as it appeared to be just metro.consious that i only had limited daylight (starts getting dark around 5) i decided to go explore the city. i went into the fine art musem and paid...

Jan 29, 2011 - 29/01/11 city of books

woke up in what feels like student diggs. used the shower that belongs in psycho-ville then went for breakfast which included hotdogs,thick ham etc (though i just had a yog as couldnt quite stomac meat that early). russians tend not to have milk with there tea so i sneaked some for the ceral bar. at 10 i went to the reception\breakfast room\conference room(small hotel but clean and friendly) to meet m tour group and guide excited to make some friends and discovered i am the only one. apparently not many ppl vistit russia in the middle of...

Dec 22, 2010 - The end of the line...

So… this was it, the end of the line. I stepped from an overnight train for the last time on into a crisp sub-zero St. Petersburg morning. Behind me lay nearly 3 months of people, places and experiences I will never forget. It had been everything I had dreamed of, everything I had imagined. Now all that remained was two days in the city some refer to as the Venice of the North. What did it have in store for me? Julia, my honcho for the day, was waiting on the platform for me. She quickly showed Scott and me to the crowded metro. It appeared...

Sep 23, 2010 - St. Petersburg, Russia - Tour of the city

Starting our trip in Moscow and ending it in St. Petersburg could not have been better. As much as we enjoyed Stockholm, Oslo, and Helsinki, the pure grandeur and exquisite beauty of Moscow and St. Petersburg simply cannot be matched by any other city in the world! It was like "book ending" our trip with the best there is. St. Petersburg, initially called Peter the Great’s “folly”, was built on a swamp on the edge of the Baltic Sea over 300 years ago. Today it is Russia’s cultural capital and most beautiful city. It is now called the...

Sep 4, 2010 - St. Petersburg, Russia - Day Two

Today we began our tour at the Hermitage Museum. Once the Winter Palace of the Tsars, this Palace, now restored, houses a fantastic collection of art, artifacts, furnishings, and other memorabilia from throughout the history of St. Petersburg. Our three hour visit here was a mere overview glimpse of the Hermitage. One would need several days to fully appreciate the art and history contained there. Our next stop was the Church of the Resurrection, more commonly known as the Church on the Spilled Blood, because it was the site of the...

Sep 3, 2010 - St. Petersburg, Russia - Day One

Until this point in the trip we have toured largely on our own. However, for our two days in Russia we decided it would be best to hire a driver and a guide to get the most out of our short time here. Unfortunately, our time became a little shorter when the ship was a couple of hours late making port. During the early morning hours as the ship approached the entrance to the very narrow channel into St. Petersburg, the winds were gusting very strong. The Captain wisely aborted two attempts at entering before finally navigating into the...

Jul 25, 2010 - 2010 Baltic Sea Cruise - St. Petersburg

Day 5 (July 25, 2010) - St. Petersburg - Our tour started bright and early today, having to meet in the Star Princess theater at 6:30am for the staging to the buses. Today was day 1 of our 2 day excursion in St. Petersburg. The focal point of today was the Neva River and Canals tour, the Hermitage, and St. Isaacs Cathedral with lunch at an Armenian restaurant. The canal tour was a great way of seeing the city, and one I should endeavor to repeat on future opportunities. As an added bonus, it was Navy Day, so several Russian naval vessels...

Jul 15, 2010 - Around St. Petersburg

No time to rest! The museum only stays open until 6pm, so chop chop! We figure that we're close enough to the Hermitage to walk to it, and besides, we need the exercise after 13 hours on a train. We don't realize that it's not a straight shot, and following the edge of Vasilievsky island, we walk the whole way around the spit to the bridge. Later, we look at a map and realize it would have been faster to bypass the spit and cut across to the bridge. So, St. Petersburg is just as hot as Riga was, and we sweat all the way to the bridge. We do...