We have stocked up the cupboard for Emma with esentials like cans of dog food , Maggi noodles, honey, weetbix,cans of spagetti and baked beans etc and left detailed instructions for her like no parties or gatherings.
Our bags are packed with travel guides and an odd assortment of clothes to cope with the chill of St Petersburg and the sunshine of rural France.
We leave on Friday at 3.30.
Will keep you posted on our journey.
Sat
Greetings from paris. Arrive Sat 6am after a long flight. Hotel check-in not until the afternoon, so we left rhe luggage at the hotel and headed by train to the city.
Walked along the Seine past the Louvre to the Orangery. The Orangery had macificent Monets (8 in total, but each one was 15 meters long and 2 meters high. Saw so many Renoirs that it was overload. Discovered a Rousseau copy in the Orangery. Luckily we were able to spot the fake because we have seen the original at Leon's house.
Wonderful meal at a little cafe and the headed home to a great hotel and crashed.
Sunday
Met Christian for lunch at a typical Parisian brasserie. (Christian stayed with us when he visited Aust two years ago)
The atmosphere was terrific and the waiter was quite a character. Mavis asked for a vin rouge" and he replied " madam, you french is exceptional". He wrote the order on the table cloth and the relayed the order to the chef from memory. When we were ready to pay, he tallied it up on the table cloth. It was an interesting experence.Tuesday
Magnificent,Manic Moscow
The hotel Maxima Slavia is great but situated far from the historic centre of Moscow, much to the disgust of our excellent guide.
The food at the hotel is very good and the breakfasts are delicious. Haven’t had to try McDonalds once!
Our guide took us to the Kremlin and Red Square today. We visited a beautiful church on our way there called The Holy Trinity church where we had the privilege of listening to the chanting of the mass.
Gold onion domes abound at the Kremlin and the architecture is magnificent. St Basil’s did not disappoint as an iconic image of Moscow.
Traffic is manic in Moscow. We would hate to have to drive here.
Tomorrow we have a day of guided touring to the Metro etc and then catch the overnight train to St Petersburg.
Glad you enjoyed the presents Brooke and we hope you had a wonderful birthday.
Wednesday
Travel guides continue to object to our choice of hotels. The traffic is so congested in Moscow that it is taking nearly two hours to reach our hotel. It takes us about 1⅟₂ hours to reach the centre. Toured the Tretyakov gallery which contained Russian art including the largest and most valuable collections of Icons. Lunch consisted of a blini (pancake with a filling-delicious) and a beer at a small cafe in Arbat street which was a shopping mall. It was great to escape cars for a while. Moscow has over 3 million cars and this results in road chaos.
The afternoon consisted of a tour of some of the metro stations. Each station is a work of art and features crystal chandeliers, sculptures and painted ceilings. We were amazed at the length of the escalators –the ones we saw were over 100 metres long and dropped over 70 metres. However, Valentina our guide said some were over 200 metres under ground. He trains ran ever 2 minutes and they were packed with people. However in peak periods, the trains are spaced by only 45 seconds and carry 9 mission passengers per day.
We now have an overnight train ride to St Petersburg. The guide will pick us up earlier than planned in case the traffic becomes too congested. While we are waiting at the train station a man who has had a little too much to drink sits next to Mavis. He proceeds to fall asleep and uses Mavis as a pillow. We move one seat and he falls on to the vacant seat, but sleeps on. The police soon spot him and he is unceremoniously escorted out of the building.
Our two berth sleeping compartment is quite comfortable. A small breakfast is provides and the carrage attendant brings us a cup of tea and hot semolina in the morning. When we arrive at the station, our driver Victor is waiting. It turns out that Victor has a daughter living in Perth and she has just given birth to a son. We are shown the family photos. Victor has been to Perth twice. He speaks broken English and his son in law speaks broken Russian. They spend time telling each other jokes and have fun trying to understand what they are talking about.
We spend the day with Victor and our guide Jana and have a look at the sights of St Petersburg We see the Church on spilled blood.
Friday
Traffic today in St Petersburg s seems as bad as Moscow. We head off to the Hermitage museum. Jana is very curious about Australian spiders. We tell her about the huntsman spider that walks around the house, but we just consider it to be a pet. She is horrified at the thought of a spider in the house. I tell Jana that Victor’s favourite beer in Australia (Redback) is named after a spider. Victor confirms, much to Jana’s disbelief.
See two paintings by Leonardo da Vinci. Unlike the Louvre in Paris, we are able to stand as close as we like(just don’t touch).The building is quite amazing. Just the doors and the parquetry flooring would make the visit worthwhile. There are rooms full of paintings by Rembrandt, Rubens, Matisse, Picasso, Raphael, Gauguin etc and our guide is excellent and so well informed and keeps us thoroughly entertained for four hours. It is obvious that we have only touched the surface of what is a wonderfully rich art gallery but towards the end we are passing through rooms of Picassos with just a cursory glance which makes you realize that we must leave the rest for a return visit in the future perhaps?
On our return Ken went to the local supermarket and is cooking up a delightful meal despite the instructions on the packets being in Russian. It all goes down well with the french wine he has bought.
The mini Hotel the Austrian Yard is great but up four flights of steps with no lift so we will have plenty of exercise
